Boot Camp: Hide a Windows XP volume on Mac desktop


So, you’ve installed Apple’s Boot Camp, partitioned your hard disk, installed Windows XP, but now you have the Windows volume showing up on your Mac desktop. You can hide it (but keep access to it), by doing the following:

Using a command-line tool called “SetFile”, you can mark the volume’s mount point as hidden. SetFile allows you to set attributes of files and directories from

First, install the Developer Tools from your OS X installation disk that came with your computer. This will install oodles of cool noodles in /Developer.

Launch Terminal.app, which is housed in the “Utilities” folder within the “Application” folder.

All mounted volumes show up in /Volumes (flash drives, USB drives, Firewire drives, internal, CDs, DVDs, etc.). Display the directory by issuing the following command within Terminal.app:

ls -al /Volumes

My Windows XP partition is named “Untitled”. A directory listing of my /Volumes directory shows:

drwxrwxrwt    5 root     admin     170 Mar  6 18:22 .
drwxrwxr-t   34 root     admin    1258 Mar  6 11:29 ..
drwxr-xr-x   28 cbrewer  cbrewer  1054 Mar  5 09:57 Data
lrwxr-xr-x    1 root     admin       1 Mar  6 11:29 Hard Drive -> /
drwxr-xr-x    1 cbrewer  cbrewer  0 Jan 14  2006 Untitled

Hiding the “Untiltled” volume is a snap. Again, from Terminal.app, issue this command:

/Developer/Tools/SetFile -a V /Users

Thanks to readers Epimenide and Kodafox for pointing out that the above code was hiding the /Users directory. Sorry for the confusion! The corrected form is:

/Developer/Tools/SetFile -a V /Volumes/Untitled

Now, you will need to restart Finder to have it re-read the attributes of the “Untitled” mount point. You can do this by either rebooting your Mac, or simply by issuing the following command from the Terminal.app:

killall Finder

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March 7th, 2007
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Comment Number:
1
Deposited by:
Epimenide
Bagged on:
April 19, 2007 at 5:10 am

Are you sure of the command? It seems to me it’s hiding your /Users folder, not your /Volumes/Untitled…

Comment Number:
2
Deposited by:
Stuart
Bagged on:
April 20, 2007 at 3:27 am

How do you reverse it?

Comment Number:
3
Deposited by:
Chris Brewer
Bagged on:
April 20, 2007 at 8:07 am

It can be reversed (e.g., the folder can be unhidden) by changing the “V” to a lower-case “v”:

/Developer/Tools/SetFile -a v /Volumes/Untitled

Comment Number:
4
Deposited by:
Kodafox
Bagged on:
April 29, 2007 at 5:36 pm

Don’t you mean
/Developer/Tools/SetFile -a V /Volumes/Untitled

and not

/Developer/Tools/SetFile -a V /Users

??

Comment Number:
5
Deposited by:
Chris Brewer
Bagged on:
April 30, 2007 at 8:08 am

Thanks Epimenide and Kodafox for adding to the trash heap on this one. I’ve corrected the article to fix my error!

Comment Number:
6
Deposited by:
Charles
Bagged on:
April 30, 2007 at 4:04 pm

What if I dont want it to mount the disk at all? I am running Parallels, and using that volume when in OS X, and since its mounted, Parallels has to unmount it first then it can use the partition. I dont access the windows partition when in OS X otherwise, so mounting it is a waste of time for me. (I tried fstab, but cannot locate the file)

Comment Number:
7
Deposited by:
Chris Brewer
Bagged on:
May 1, 2007 at 1:39 pm

Charles, check out this garbage on preventing Mac OS X from mounting a volume. Thanks for the article tip! Let us know how that works out with Parallels…

Comment Number:
8
Deposited by:
Brad
Bagged on:
June 19, 2007 at 1:53 pm

Hey… just curious… I get write errors when doing this, and I can’t see any difference between yours and mine. Here is the error code I am getting, and my ls -al output:

ERROR: Write Permissions Error. (-61) on file: Untitled

drwxr-xr-x 1 ambereve ambereve 0 Apr 22 2009 Untitled

Any insight? Thanks!

Comment Number:
9
Deposited by:
Brad
Bagged on:
June 19, 2007 at 1:56 pm

Addition to above:

Additionally, my full ls -al looks like below, and actually looks like ._untitled has something to do with the ._iPod and ._Brad Evenst

Wonder if I’m overlapping somehow…

-rwxrwxrwx 1 ambereve ambereve 82 Jan 30 19:06 ._Brad Evenst
-rwxrwxrwx 1 ambereve ambereve 82 Jan 30 19:05 ._IPOD
-rwxr-xr-x 1 ambereve ambereve 82 Jun 19 12:47 ._Untitled
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1 Jun 19 11:31 Macintosh HD -> /
drwxr-xr-x 13 ambereve ambereve 544 May 18 16:06 Media and Programs
drwxrwxrwx 1 ambereve ambereve 32768 Jun 19 11:44 My Book
drwxr-xr-x 50 ambereve ambereve 1802 Jun 18 10:15 SystemRestore
drwxr-xr-x 1 ambereve ambereve 0 Apr 22 2009 Untitled

Comment Number:
10
Deposited by:
Dave Land
Bagged on:
September 4, 2007 at 12:49 am

This can also be achieved by naming the Windows volume with a dot: Mine is “.Windows”. Because dot-files are hidden in the finder by default, the Windows volume doesn’t show up. The renaming must be done from the command line, because the Finder won’t let you start a file name with a period.

Comment Number:
11
Deposited by:
Hiding a mounted volume on MacOS » Draconis Software Blog
Bagged on:
September 5, 2007 at 2:40 pm

[...] Quick note here, that’s especially useful to people using BootCamp on their Macs and don’t want their Windows-formatted partition appearing on their desktop. To hide it whenever the Finder starts (it will still be mounted, but not visible on the Finder), open the Terminal and run the following command: [...]

Comment Number:
12
Deposited by:
nohouse.dk » Boot Camp: Windows drevet væk fra skrivebordet på Mac
Bagged on:
September 15, 2007 at 3:09 pm

[...] Løsning: Boot Camp: Hide a Windows XP volume on Mac desktop [...]

Comment Number:
13
Deposited by:
Command-Tab » Hiding Your “Untitled” Boot Camp Drive
Bagged on:
September 20, 2007 at 10:06 pm

[...] rename the Windows NTFS volume from “Untitled” to something more appropriate. The Garbage In Garbage Out blog has a tip that will accomplish the next best thing: Hide the Boot Camp volume from your [...]

Comment Number:
14
Deposited by:
Cómo ocultar la partición BootCamp en OSX : planetamac
Bagged on:
September 21, 2007 at 2:57 am

[...] Garbage In Garbage Out  fresqui |  menéame | permalink | trackback url volver [...]

Comment Number:
15
Deposited by:
HowTo: Quitar del escritorio el molesto "Untlited" de tu partición Bootcamp
Bagged on:
October 2, 2007 at 6:36 pm

[...] Vía | Command-Tab Más información | Garbage Blog [...]

Comment Number:
16
Deposited by:
Sakrivanje win particije sa desktop-a | blog v0.2
Bagged on:
November 5, 2007 at 10:07 am

[...] Boot Camp: Hide a Windows XP volume on Mac desktop ima odličan tekst o tome kako sakriti WIN particiju sa mac desktopa. [...]

Comment Number:
17
Deposited by:
Flailing Wildly » Blog Archive » Hide a Boot Camp NTFS Volume (Drive) under Tiger or Leopard
Bagged on:
November 23, 2007 at 10:05 pm

[...] to Garbage In, Garbage Out, simply copy-paste this line into your Terminal, and press [...]

Comment Number:
18
Deposited by:
Jason
Bagged on:
January 16, 2008 at 4:45 pm

Hi, I have hidden my MBP bootcamp partition but now on my macbook I get this error?

ERROR: Write Permissions Error. (-61) on file: Untitled

Comment Number:
19
Deposited by:
phenixone
Bagged on:
January 25, 2008 at 4:01 am

You can also ad a Dot at the beginning of your windows partition while ruing windows (mac doesn’t allow it) and “Boom” (eh steve!) you windows drive icon disappears from the desktop. Of course this does not unmount the drive and you can still access it from the left menu in fonder but this was exactly what I was looking for !!!!

Comment Number:
20
Deposited by:
TypeTrash
Bagged on:
February 9, 2008 at 9:14 pm

I have to use a Mac at my job and it is very slowly growing on me. when I have to use Excel it really is a drag though because of the lack of functionality and familiarity with the XP version. I use a windows ready mac with an Intel processor. Do you think its faster to install XP as you suggest or use one of these Macs?

Comment Number:
21
Deposited by:
Trevin
Bagged on:
May 4, 2008 at 12:14 pm

The first time i tried this, it worked great. I did not know how to unhide it, so i looked around on the internet, played around with the terminal a bit, and now i have my Untitled drive and hidden files such as .DS_Store and .localized on my desktop and in my folders. Can anyone help with this?

Comment Number:
22
Deposited by:
Alex
Bagged on:
August 26, 2008 at 2:30 pm

Brad:
I´ve had the same issue as you (ERROR: Write Permissions Error. (-61) on file: Untitled)
The reason seems to be that you can´t write to a NTFS filesystem, and the solution is to install MacFuse (http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/) and the NTFS plugin for it (http://macntfs-3g.blogspot.com/), then run the code found on this page.

Comment Number:
23
Deposited by:
johnny_n
Bagged on:
November 6, 2008 at 3:18 pm

Confirmed, Alex is right… install MacFuse.

john.

Comment Number:
24
Deposited by:
Hide a BootCamp Windows Partition from the OS X Desktop | Bits of Tech
Bagged on:
May 14, 2009 at 7:54 am

[...] from Apple’s developer tools called SetFile to hide the partition. Have a look at the post here: BootCamp: Hide a Windows XP volume on Mac desktop. Keep in mind that to use this method, you will have to install Apple’s Developer Tools, [...]

Comment Number:
25
Deposited by:
Mark
Bagged on:
May 29, 2009 at 9:49 am

Thanks everyone who suggested to rename Windows partition starting with a .dot. That’s so much easier, because you don’t have to install any NTFS-allowing software.

Comment Number:
26
Deposited by:
sandrar
Bagged on:
September 10, 2009 at 8:14 am

Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog. :) Cheers! Sandra. R.