[Solved]Unmounted drive icons disappeared from desktop

gilgamesh · 2026-08-20 13:33:01

Hello,
I have an old laptop with an external SSD connected via a USB port. A fully functional Debian forky distribution is installed on this SSD. When I boot from this SSD, I normally see an Xfce desktop displaying, among other things, two unmounted partitions—“home” and “root”—from the internal drive. They have just disappeared and been replaced by a “cdrom0” icon that I’ve never seen before.
What I checked and tried:
1- I checked that everything was correct in Desktop Icons and in Desktop > File/Launcher Icons > General and Default Icons

2- I plugged a USB drive containing a fully functional Debian forky distribution into another laptop, then booted from it: both icons appeared.

3- I replaced the USB drive with the SSD on this same recent laptop: neither icon appeared. Instead, a “cdrom0” icon appeared. Problem: this laptop doesn't have a CD-ROM drive!! Both versions of Debian forky are up to date and identical.

If anyone has any ideas about what else I could test.

Last edited by gilgamesh (2026-08-22 13:13:11)

Blacklight · 2026-08-20 16:32:17

edit... I reread your post

you troubleshoot that problem by observing the drives with lsblk

$ lsblk

that should show you, the external ssd drive, and the internal drive as two separate drives

it may be the case, that you have encountered a bug, which may be resolved simply with a reboot, sometimes the drives aren't registered/connected properly (maybe even a full proper reboot -> sudo poweroff -> ((maybe even a power cycle(tricky with a laptop) + for bonus points check your connections/reseat your connections) -> poweron

obviously, the system changed, expected behavior is no longer appearing, so now you have to start examining what is going on exactly

(especially if it's an 'old laptop' you should actually get down and dirty with the hardware - the metal - and give it some real maintenance) (hardware comes first -> then the software)

- edit -

I'll just add here FYI (for your information) because I know you cant search for it directly on the internet (youll get clickbait advertising results)

to properly power cycle a laptop, it's an essential activity, and is not the same as the procedure to do so with a desktop

First power off the laptop (sudo poweroff)

Leave the latop connected to the power outlet with a grounding (third) pin

Remove the battery

Then you can finally discharge the power cells pressing the power button, for between 30-60+ seconds

Then you can reapply the battery, and power on, you want to slowly properly apply the procedures dealing with hardware, then the software can do it's job

(power cycling will resolve a wide range of issues, it's not commonly understood)

Last edited by Blacklight (2026-08-20 20:21:37)

gilgamesh · 2026-08-21 08:16:58

I posted here to get an expert's opinion on whether Xfce might be related to this issue. So I'm back with either a bug or an issue related to the “forky” version of Debian, which is a bit hard to understand because “forky” works fine when installed on a USB stick, but not when installed on an SSD drive. Perhaps the settings are different, even though I thought they were the same.
In any case, thank you for your detailed response.

PS: To rule out any issues with my old laptop, I booted from my USB stick, which has Debian forky installed on it: everything works fine, and I can see all the partitions on the internal drive displayed on my desktop. So the only remaining possibility is that there is a faulty version of Debian forky—in one way or another—on my SSD.

Last edited by gilgamesh (2026-08-21 09:29:15)

Blacklight · 2026-08-21 10:59:22

It's not a totally uncommon problem, to have strange devices appear, to have strange machine quirks, to have devices improperly registered, but it obviously has nothing to do with Xfce, but instead is specific to the OS, Debian Gnu/Linux

its merely a coincidence you happen to be using xfce at the same time

But so, you have the ISO image on a USB, and with that system, you have no such issue -> then you install debian testing (forky) onto the ssd, and... eventually the system changes, it's no longer the same.

You seem to be reluctant to examine the OS on your SSD, I'm not familiar with the changes in forky, I guess it might be pretty extensive based on what I've been reading,

Xfce is the front end, to the back end, of your Debian Gnu/Linux OS, here we're more concerned with things like the color scheme of our themes and icons, and the dimensions of our GUI. Maybe changing our wallpaper automatically...

You may want to seek out different advice, I would recommend to you to start over, with a fresh image, simply because it's very easy and effective to do so, recover any data you need -> start new, that's the benefit of having a read only image of your system on a disk, from the upstream distributor, that's ideally uncorrupted, then carefully document all procedures taken afterwards, keep a little notebook, take some precautions, it might literally take you less time, than having this conversation if you put cpufreq.default_governor=performance on your grub command line, and disconnect the computer from the internet (for the install, but really, as often as you are able is best)

should also add, that, you can assume you're going to have issues with Debian Testing (forky) and witness some really strange bugs, that system is meant specifically for developers, who are able to deal with them, and experienced users, Debian 13 (Trixie) is the product of all the previous years of hard work, to make a stable system, for most people / everyone else.

That's the one you want.

(testing/unstable will continually undergo changes, in a week they'll be different, theyre under development: the stable system is the one that has stopped receiving the focus of development, so has stopped changing mostly, except for security updates)

Last edited by Blacklight (2026-08-21 11:08:10)

gilgamesh · 2026-08-21 13:51:43

should also add, that, you can assume you're going to have issues with Debian Testing (forky) and witness some really strange bugs, that system is meant specifically for developers, who are able to deal with them, and experienced users, Debian 13 (Trixie) is the product of all the previous years of hard work, to make a stable system, for most people / everyone else.

I know that, and the reason I’m testing it despite the bugs I might run into is that it’s of particular interest to me: this “testing” version of Debian includes a new kernel that features the only driver available on Linux for my Mediatek Wi-Fi card, and I need it for my Wi-Fi to work. I’m currently using a USB Wi-Fi adapter, which means one USB port is always occupied, and I only have one left. That’s why I regularly test forky. As soon as I’m satisfied with it, I’ll install this kernel when it becomes available in stable-backports. For now, it still has too many issues. In the meantime, I'm trying to resolve the few major issues that have come up. So I'll be ready to upgrade my current trixie distribution to forky.

Last edited by gilgamesh (2026-08-21 13:56:25)

Blacklight · 2026-08-21 15:57:07

that's a quick fix for ya, I can give you a fast guide right now.... start over with a nice brand new trixie install

# make your own kernel, and manage it outside of apt (easy)

# make a root account

$ sudo passwd

# grab the dependencies

$ sudo apt install bc binutils bison dwarves flex gcc git gnupg2 gzip libelf-dev libncurses5-dev libssl-dev make openssl perl-base rsync tar xz-utils pahole -y

# set cpu to performance mode

# edit /etc/default/grub

# add: cpufreq.default_governor=performance

# to the command line where it says "quiet splash" by default

# save -> update grub -> sudo update-grub

# reboot after making a root account: sudo poweroff

# grab the linux kernel you want upstream: www.kernel.org

# put the tarball in your home folder ~/.

# become root, grab some snacks

$ su

# extract the kernel

# tar -xf linux.tar.gz

# enter the directory

# cd linux-7.2/

# copy the debian config from /boot

# ls /boot

# put the debian config from /boot into the kernel source directory

# cp /boot/config-6.1 ./.config

# update the kernel config (kconfig) to default values that have changed

# make olddefconfig

# for debian disable module signing
./scripts/config --file .config --disable MODULE_SIG

# then youre ready to build, and you may customize it in different ways

# make menuconfig

# if you need headers use this command

# make -j$(nproc) && make modules && make modules_install && make headers_install && make install && sync && sudo poweroff

# or without headers use this one

# make -j$(nproc) && make modules && make modules_install && make install && sync && sudo poweroff

# if you put your cpu into performance mode, and it's not too old, it may take 30 minutes to build a default debian kconfig kernel

# may take longer, everything should be automatic for you, so when you reboot, you'll have your new kernel automatically

$ uname -a

I like managing my own kernel outside of apt, it's way better than relying on Debian. That's typical actually for people to have some control over their own drivers in other OS

the modules go to /usr/lib/modules the kernel/config go to /boot and the source stays in your home directory. You can delete them, to uninstall, and sudo update-grub after

you might do like... cd /boot ... rm -rf *7.2* ... cd /usr/lib/modules ... rm -rf *7.2* .... sudo update-grub

(you should try to get a stable branch of the kernel if you can)

Last edited by Blacklight (2026-08-21 16:06:33)

gilgamesh · 2026-08-22 13:11:25

Just for your information: Installing gvfs solved the problem. Don't ask me why, but DuckDuckGo Assist found the answer as soon as I mentioned that the trash can icon wasn't showing up either—something I hadn't noticed until later.

PS: https://docs.xfce.org/xfce/thunar/unix- … ystem_gvfs

Gnome Virtual File System (GVFS)
Some thunar features, like support for trash, removable media, folder specific settings, file highlight and remote file systems only can be used if the gvfs packages provided by your distribution are installed

Last edited by gilgamesh (2026-08-22 13:51:46)

Blacklight · 2026-08-22 17:21:21

Just for your information: Installing gvfs solved the problem.

I don't think that will actually matter, because gvfs is already installed by default

$ sudo apt info xfdesktop4

Package: xfdesktop4
Version: 4.16.0-1
Priority: optional
Section: xfce
Maintainer: Debian Xfce Maintainers <debian-xfce@lists.debian.org>
Installed-Size: 683 kB
Depends: exo-utils, xfdesktop4-data (= 4.16.0-1), libc6 (>= 2.14), libcairo2 (>= 1.10.0), libexo-2-0 (>= 0.11.0), libgarcon-1-0 (>= 0.3.0), libgarcon-gtk3-1-0 (>= 0.6.0), libgdk-pixbuf-2.0-0 (>= 2.22.0), libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.37.3), libgtk-3-0 (>= 3.22), libnotify4 (>= 0.7.0), libpango-1.0-0 (>= 1.44.6), libthunarx-3-0 (>= 1.7.0), libwnck-3-0 (>= 3.14), libx11-6, libxfce4ui-2-0 (>= 4.13.0), libxfce4util7 (>= 4.13.0), libxfconf-0-3 (>= 4.12.1)
Recommends: default-dbus-session-bus | dbus-session-bus, librsvg2-common, tumbler, xdg-user-dirs
Replaces: xfdesktop4-data (<< 4.5.92)
Homepage: https://docs.xfce.org/xfce/xfdesktop/start
Tag: implemented-in::c, interface::graphical, interface::x11, role::program,
 scope::utility, suite::xfce, uitoolkit::gtk, x11::application
Download-Size: 166 kB
APT-Manual-Installed: no
APT-Sources: http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye/main amd64 Packages
Description: Xfce desktop background, icons and root menu manager
 xfdesktop4 sets the background image, provides a right-click menu to
 launch applications and can optionally show files (including application
 launchers) or iconified windows. It includes gradient support for
 background color, saturation support for background image, real multiscreen
 and xinerama support.

$ sudo apt info gvfs
[sudo] password for user: 
Package: gvfs
Version: 1.46.2-2+deb11u1
Status: install ok installed
Priority: optional
Section: libs
Maintainer: Debian GNOME Maintainers <pkg-gnome-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org>
Installed-Size: 408 kB
Depends: gvfs-common (= 1.46.2-2+deb11u1), gvfs-daemons (<< 1.46.2-2+deb11u1.1~), gvfs-daemons (>= 1.46.2-2+deb11u1), gvfs-libs (= 1.46.2-2+deb11u1), libc6 (>= 2.14), libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.65.1)
Suggests: gvfs-backends
Homepage: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/gvfs
Download-Size: unknown
APT-Manual-Installed: no
APT-Sources: /var/lib/dpkg/status
Description: userspace virtual filesystem - GIO module
 gvfs is a userspace virtual filesystem where mounts run as separate
 processes which you talk to via D-Bus. It also contains a gio module
 that seamlessly adds gvfs support to all applications using the gio
 API. It also supports exposing the gvfs mounts to non-gio applications
 using fuse.
 .
 This package contains the GIO module that lets applications use gvfs
 mounts.

$ sudo apt remove gvfs
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  gvfs-common gvfs-daemons gvfs-libs libc-devtools libplacebo72
  libprotobuf-lite23 lsof
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  gvfs
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 408 kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y

(Reading database ... 238484 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing gvfs:amd64 (1.46.2-2+deb11u1) ...
Processing triggers for libglib2.0-0:amd64 (2.66.8-1+deb11u8) ...

I tried removing gvfs, and rebooting, and it did prevent xfdesktop4 from showing external drives and the 'trash' icon

You're still better off following the original advice given, and using Stable Trixie Debian, and just upgrading your kernel if that's what you need. you can also just update whatever packages you want to a newer version, and pull them into the stable branch.

Using testing (forky) or unstable (sid) is a bad idea for most people, especially as their main OS, you will definitely experience strange hard to diagnose bugs like that

Last edited by Blacklight (2026-08-22 17:32:45)

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#1 2026-08-20 13:33:01

[Solved]Unmounted drive icons disappeared from desktop

#2 2026-08-20 16:32:17

Re: [Solved]Unmounted drive icons disappeared from desktop

#3 2026-08-21 08:16:58

Re: [Solved]Unmounted drive icons disappeared from desktop

#4 2026-08-21 10:59:22

Re: [Solved]Unmounted drive icons disappeared from desktop

#5 2026-08-21 13:51:43

Re: [Solved]Unmounted drive icons disappeared from desktop

#6 2026-08-21 15:57:07

Re: [Solved]Unmounted drive icons disappeared from desktop

#7 2026-08-22 13:11:25

Re: [Solved]Unmounted drive icons disappeared from desktop

#8 2026-08-22 17:21:21

Re: [Solved]Unmounted drive icons disappeared from desktop

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