Weird Error Message

K
Posted By
kevin
Mar 31, 2009
Views
1415
Replies
26
Status
Closed
All of a sudden, every time I launch Photoshop, I get an error message instead. It says:

"Could not initialize Photoshop because the disk is not available."

What the heck is this about? I reinstalled it and it just keeps happening. Help!

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Chris_Cox
Mar 31, 2009
Something happened to your scratch disk, or corrupted the Photoshop preferences. Reset the Photoshop preferences and it should go away.
K
kevin
Mar 31, 2009
Thanks for posting, Chris. Unfortunately, trashing my prefs didn’t fix the problem. Likewise, reinstalling the app didn’t fix the problem. What finally fixed the problem was uninstalling the app completely and then installing it all over again. What a beating!

NOTE TO ALL: NEVER EVER EVER choose something other than your boot drive as your primary scratch disk. I’m convinced that this is where all the nonsense started.
B
Buko
Mar 31, 2009
Kevin, Did you follow the directions in the FAQs for trashing prefs? Trashing prefs will always reset the scratch disk. Reinstalling without trashing prefs is futile as reinstalling does not trash the prefs.

And as far as your bad advice about keeping the boot drive as scratch. It may not affect you if you are working on web images, but for any serious user of photoshop a scratch disk must be on a second hard drive otherwise photoshop will slow dramatically.

you really need to learn how to use your software.
AS
Ann_Shelbourne
Mar 31, 2009
NEVER EVER EVER choose something other than your boot drive as your primary scratch disk. I’m convinced that this is where all the nonsense started.

Your problem probably arose because you designated an external FWD for Scratch and then failed to keep it connected.
K
kevin
Mar 31, 2009
Thanks, Ann. You’ve helped me before. You always manage to be helpful without the superior attitude I sometimes see in this forum.
R
Ram
Mar 31, 2009
Kevin,

The "advice" you gave is bad, awful, mindless and wrong.

The correct advice would be to ALWAYS set your primary scratch disk to a physically separate, dedicated internal hard drive (internal whenever possible), or to an external, dedicated hard drive that you always keep connected when you are using Photoshop.

PEBKAC. It never fails. The more strident the rant, the greater the likelihood of PEBKAC.
K
kevin
Mar 31, 2009
I couldn’t have scripted a response that proved my point more perfectly. Thank you, Ramon.

You all are probably right. Still, I can’t trace my problem to anything else. Changing primary scratch disks is the only new element in the equation. And there were no external drives that went offline during that period. It really is puzzling.

While the words NEVER EVER EVER were probably too extreme, I still say, to anyone who gets this error message in the future and needs help, changing primary scratch disks was surely the cause of my 5 hours of grief yesterday. How or why, I can’t say (and when Photoshop won’t boot, you have no chance to change this setting)

The error message again (for Googling purposes):
"Could not initialize Photoshop because the disk is not available."

Lessons learned:
• Trashing prefs didn’t fix the problem
• Reinstalling Photoshop didn’t fix the problem
• Repairing permissions and doing everything above didn’t fix the problem • Running Disk Warrior and all the above didn’t fix the problem • Only completely uninstalling and then reinstalling Photoshop plus restarting and repairing permissions fixed the problem (I can’t say if restarting and repairing permissions were necessary, that’s just what I did)

The next person who gets this error message (instead of Photoshop launching) has a blueprint for getting their system back up so they can finish their project. That, at my last check, is the purpose for this forum.

The problem is solved.
B
Buko
Mar 31, 2009
Kevin the only solution is to trash the prefs. my guess is that you did it wrong (not following the procedure in the FAQs) trashing prefs correctly sets the prefs to factory defaults.
AS
Ann_Shelbourne
Mar 31, 2009
If it happens again, and the methods given in the FAQs fail, you can always go to:

User/Library/Preferences/Adobe Photoshop CS4 Settings/…

and delete: Adobe Photoshop CS4 Prefs.psp
B
Buko
Mar 31, 2009
My guess is he deleted the plist file thinking that was the prefs.
K
kevin
Apr 1, 2009
Yes, that’s what I did. Okay, I now understand about the trashing prefs issue.

What I can’t seem to understand is why I always get the aborted boot when I do as you all suggest and set an internal drive other than my boot drive as the primary scratch disk. Can someone please tell me what I’m doing wrong?

In the scratch disk preference, El Diablo is my boot drive.

<http://homepage.mac.com/kevinmote/Enclose/Scratch_Disk.png>

And then I get this.

< http://homepage.mac.com/kevinmote/Enclose/Disk_Error_Msg.png>

Perhaps someone can tell me what I’m doing wrong.
AS
Ann_Shelbourne
Apr 1, 2009
"The Deep" is the one that you have actually selected as your primary Scratch drive.

If you want to use El Diablo, you need to move it to the top position in the list.

And if "The Deep" is not permanently installed, deselect it as a scratch disk.
K
kevin
Apr 1, 2009
Yes, that’s my point: every single time I select a scratch disk other than my boot drive, I get this error upon Photoshop startup. It doesn’t matter which drive I select. If it isn’t my boot-up drive, I get this same error message instead of Photoshop booting up.

Let me be clear: I’ve tried selecting every internal drive I have and even a couple of externals. Same result.

Perhaps, I’m not looking like quite the PEBKAC some had suggested. This is actually not behaving as I’m told that it should.

Nice trick with the Shift-Option-Command on startup.
NK
Neil_Keller
Apr 1, 2009
I suspect there may be something wrong with the other drives — connections or format. Check connections; even swap cables. Also, are these other drives formated HFS+ (Mac OS X Extended)?

Neil
B
Buko
Apr 1, 2009
also they can not be case sensitive.
R
Ram
Apr 1, 2009
PEBKAC. It has everything to do with the formatting of the drives.

As Neil and Buko said, your drives need to be formatted as Macintosh HFS+ Extended (Journaled) and NOT case-sensitive. You must also have full ownership read/right permissions to them. If necessary (meaning if the drive still balks due to a permissions error), do a Get Info (Command+I) on the icon of the drive in the Finder and set it to "Ignore ownership of this Volume".

But the formatting of the drive is the first thing to tend to.
R
Ram
Apr 1, 2009
Drives formatted to FAT32 won’t do.
NK
Neil_Keller
Apr 1, 2009
I would say that new drives that claim both Mac and Win compatibility are formated as FAT32; a compromise for either platform, but more compromised for ideal Mac usage.

If drive formatting turns out to be the problem (Disk Utility can tell you), you will need to back up everything you need on that drive before reformatting.

Neil
K
kevin
Apr 1, 2009
The offending drives were formatted as "Extended," but not "Journaled." Even so, ownership appears to have been the culprit. Checking "Ignore Ownership" fixed the issue—even on the drives not formatted as Journaled.

Thanks to all. A concrete solution might well have been worth the derision.
R
Ram
Apr 1, 2009
Journaled is not necessary for a scratch drive. You’ll be fine.

Journaling was mentioned just because, as a rule, you want your Macs to be journaled, but if the drive is only used for scratch, then there’s nothing to keep track of.
R
Ram
Apr 1, 2009
Incidentally, "Ignore Ownership" of the volume is a workaround, under normal circumstances it shouldn’t be necessary.
K
kevin
Apr 2, 2009
Yes, but a workaround for what?
B
Buko
Apr 2, 2009
a work around for Photoshop not being able to use the drive for scratch. I basically removes permissions as its a permissions issue.
R
Ram
Apr 2, 2009
&#8804;but a workaround for what?

For whatever defect, formatting or otherwise, you or the drive formatter induced into your drive.

No one can troubleshoot your machine remotely for you, especially with as little detail as you have given.
K
kevin
Apr 2, 2009
Obviously, this discussion has strayed into the gray area between Adobe and Apple products.

My immediate problem has long-since been solved, and, as much gosh-darned fun as this thread has been, I’m afraid we’ve come to the end. I’m overcome with melancholy—thinking of all the fun times we’ve had together. Thanks to all who cheerfully participated.
B
Buko
Apr 2, 2009
You are the one who asked Kevin.

maybe you don’t really want an answer next time you ask.

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