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4

I'm able to erase a partition using the Disk Utility, but I want to change the name without losing data. How is it possible?

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If the partition is mounted, you can rename it just like any other file or folder by highlighting and pressing enter – Alexander Momchliov Dec 15 '13 at 17:04
up vote 80 down vote accepted

To rename the volume, enter the following in Terminal:

/usr/sbin/diskutil rename oldname newname

for example:

/usr/sbin/diskutil rename "Macintosh HD" "Mac Disk"

You can also right-click a partition in Finder (in Computername at the top level of the hierarchy), select Get Info, and enter the new name there.

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If you rename the volume where your home directory is, don't forget to update your home directory path in the System Preferences before rebooting. – Christian Lescuyer Dec 13 '12 at 10:42
    
@ChristianLescuyer That's only a problem if your home directory isn't on the root volume (i.e. the default), and isn't assigned a static mount point e.g. through /etc/fstab. – Daniel Beck♦ Feb 9 '13 at 8:35
2  
It worked for me by specifying the path to the mounted volume: diskutil rename /Volumes/UNTITLED\ 1/ newname – Ionut Popa Jan 18 '14 at 23:54
1  
I'm on 10.9.5 and I get the error Failed to rename volume: Invalid request (-69886) – Patrick Roberts Apr 18 '15 at 1:14
    
10.11.x - this worked for me. Thanks +1 – David DelMonte Nov 11 '15 at 15:21
up vote 10 down vote

Or just go to Finder and change the name in the left hand column, just like a file.

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Too simple. ;) You get my vote. – Wildcard Sep 25 at 8:06
up vote 0 down vote

Thank You! That really saved me!

Problem was: - renamed my hard drive in OS X - couldn't login to my user, after restarting OS X (missing user folder)

(I forgot to change my user folder path...)

Solution: - Reboot with CMD+R - open Terminal - use the commands above, to fix re-rename hard drive

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