HP Simplesave Desktop on Mac

[mikepoint25]

How do you get ride of the HP Launcher icon from your desktop. I've formated the drive but the disk just keeps showing up.

[joeinfulleffect]

Hey Guys.... I have some info that will help you out. I've been using Apple computers for ages.  

Formatting your Drive to work on both Mac and PC:

1. Plug your HP Simple Save in and wait for it to mount on the desktop.

2. Click Spotlight (top right corner) and type "disk utility" it should be the first thing that comes up as soon as you type the letter "d"

3. Once you've opened disk utility select the HP drive from the list on the left.

4. After the HP drive is selected, click the "Erase" tab.

5. Click the drop-down for "Volume Format" and select MS-DOS (FAT) NOTE: This is not the most secure format.  You will have to be very careful to properly eject your drive each time you're done using (especially on PC). If the drive is not ejected correctly there is a chance data loss may occur.  I personally have never experienced this (knock on wood) but many forums say to always use Mac OS Journaled for sensitive data or important back-ups.  As you may have experienced, this does not allow you to use the drive on both Mac and PC, whereas the MS-DOS (FAT) will!

6.  Your drive will now be formatted within seconds to work on both machines.... HOWEVER.... the annoying disk icon will still not disappear.  

Im currently trying to completely "zero the drive" to see if it works to rid me of the disc icon.  Unfortunately its estimating that it will take six hours to complete the job.  I'll repost if it works and include the directions step by step for anyone that's interested in trying for them selves.  

"Zeroing the drive" is something that is recommended to be done when you are finished using a hard drive.  It is the safest way to protect sensitive or private information that you may want to stay deleted i.e. : banking info, etc.  In this case I'm hoping it finds every little hidden file that HP may have installed on the drive and nukes all of them!

[alanfluff]

I just worked out how to do this with AppleScript -- before you do any of the following, read the caveat at the bottom to make sure you're happy to proceed at your own risk.

1. Open the AppleScript editor (it's in Applications, Utilities)

2. Past in your Terminal command(s). Mine was this, as I have two drives and hence two icons

diskutil unmount "/Volumes/HP Launcher"
diskutil unmount "/Volumes/HP Launcher 1"

3. Edit this Terminal-style code, so it's suitable for AppleScript, to do that you change it to the following

do shell script "diskutil unmount \"/Volumes/HP Launcher\""
do shell script "diskutil unmount \"/Volumes/HP Launcher 1\""

...you can see from the version below the items I added, highlighted here in red

do shell script "diskutil unmount \"/Volumes/HP Launcher\""

do shell script "diskutil unmount \"/Volumes/HP Launcher 1\""

You are pre-fixing the Terminal command with 'do shell script' and wrapping the Terminal command in double-quotes and finally 'escaping' the double-quotes already in use by the Terminal command by prefixing them with a back-slash.

4. You then do 'File, Save As...' and choose 'File Format:' as 'Application' and save the resulting App somewhere, I saved mine under my Home folder in a folder called 'Alans Applications' so I would easily know mine from 'real' apps in the Applications folder.

5. You can now quit the AppleScript application, and it it's open, you can quit the Terminal application.

6. If your desktop currently has the HP CD icon showing, you should be able to simply double-click your application and the HP CD icon should disappear a second or two later.

7. Optional: If you want this to happen each time you login

1. open System Preferences (the thing that looks like clock cogs)
2. choose 'Accounts'
3. click your name in the list of accounts so it's highlighted (in case it wasn't already)
4. click 'Login Items' over on the top-right
5. click the '+' symbol toward the bottom
6. navigate to your applications icon and click it once to select it and click Add

Caveat: Although I would expect these instructions to work fine and not be a problem, it's your risk if anything goes wrong -- the above worked for me but as they say, "your mileage may vary".

[sheisannalise]

For me, when I formatted the Simple Save to work on both Mac and PC it now won't back up on my Mac. I'm not sure why? I formatted it as MS-DOS(FAT).

[jessiesnowflake]

Hey, can anyone help me out with this problem, I'm trying to reformat the simplesave, but it wont even show up on my mac. What do I do?

[10rohanp]

Hi Eric,

Can you please give me a step by step process of how I can reformat the HP simple save external hardrive for macbook pro.

Thanks so much

[10rohanp]

Eric,

Could you please give me a list of steps that I need to complete in order to reformat the HP simple save external hardrive for my new macbook pro.

Thanks a bunch

[odellcs04]

Not sure if this will help anyone, but I think I found a fix for the annoying HP Launcher.  It appears that the CDFS is loaded into the controller (the SATA USB connection).  If you connect the hard drive via another USB connection, it shows up as an unformatted drive in disk utility.  I formatted it, and now I'm able to use it as an external without any sign of the HP Launcher.  Conversely, if I attach another drive with the first controller (the one that always loads HP Launcher), the only thing I can find in disk utility is a CDFS drive of about 900MB.  I'm going to try using the drive as an internal bootable drive tonight after I get some more work done on my old drive.  If anyone wants to know the outcome, post on here.

[tedpath]

I have a simple save HP drive that has files I would like to transfer to my I-mac and then use the drive with Time Machine after.  Can I simple drag those files to the Mac hard drive without having to reformat the drive and lose them?

[atim]

To Whom It May Concern: Hello. I purchased a portable external hard-drive (model hp sd500a) from Best Buy on November the 1st of 2010. Overall it seemed to be a very nice device when I used it for the first time, but with one very annoying drawback. The HPLAUNCHER virtual CD-ROM automatically mounts each time I connect the HP SimpleSave product to my computer. I need a way of disabling the virtual drive in your firmware. I don't wish to use the SimpleSave software, and therefore, do not need the virtual drive. I use this hard drive on several other operating systems as well, and the HPLAUNCHER virtual drive becomes much more annoying, and more of a hassle to deal with, when I plug the HP SimpleSave product into my Mac OS/X and Ubuntu computers. If I don't find a way to fix this problem, I have decided never to purchase another HP product again. This is a very annoying problem, and you're losing customers over the auto-mounting virtual CD "feature". Please publicly release a small, simple software tool to disable or remove the auto-mounting HP virtual CD from the product firmware for your HP SimpleSave products. Your customers are very annoyed by the fact that your company does not give them the choice to remove it when it gets in the way of using your products effectively. You are losing money to your competitors over this “lock-in” “feature”. Thank you very much for your attention. Sincerely, Tim Anderson (a very disgruntled customer)