I get this message when I try to startup Photoshop:

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

I found a fix in Tech Notes about selecting the scratch disk and choosing ignore permissions, but I don't even remember what the scratch disk was, so I don't really know how to select ignore permissions on it.

Does anyone know another way to fix this. It seems like this must be some "login-local" preference (meaning that there must be something in the user's local preferences for setting this scratch disk parameter (the only reason I'm thinking this is that if I create another user and run Photoshop, I get no error.)

I looked through ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe for any kind of Photoshop Preference, but I couldn't find a specific preference that stood out. Anyone have an idea?

What version of Photoshop? What OS?

The scratch disk is whatever you selected in preferences. In CS3, go to Photoshop > Preferences > Performance.

I'm using PhotoshopCS (version 8.0) from the first Creative Suite version and I'm on a Dual 2.7 GHz PowerMac G5 running on OS X 10.4.10 with all the patches installed.

I brought up a shell terminal and ran a find command for photoshop in my local Library and found some preferences in:

../Preferences/Adobe Photoshop 8.0 Paths

and

../Preferences/Adobe Photoshop CS Settings/Adobe Photoshop CS Prefs.psp

I moved the first one to the trash and that didn't work, so I moved the second one to the trash and then thought that maybe it won't get actually deleted unless I empty the trash so I emptied the trash and when I started photoshop didn't complain anymore, but I have to setup some Color Settings.

I haven't run Photoshop for about 9 months now and I've had to rearrange disks several times since then to accomodate other non-Adobe projects, so I didn't know what I had selected in Preferences for a scratch disk, which is why i couldn't follow the Tech note fix for the problem.

The version of Photoshop that comes with CS1 does not allow Photoshop to run when the scratch disk is missing. You get the message above and then once you click "OK" photoshop exits. It doesn't seem to allow you to select Preferences from the Photoshop menu.

Alan,

Sorry, I can't make sense out of your last two posts.

Do I gather your problem is solved?

No version of Photoshop will run if the scratch disk is missing.

Yes, the problem is solved. I'm not sure if it was solved the way it should have been, but it is solved none the less. At least I didn't have to reinstall just because the scratch disk was missing.

Deleting prefs will point the scratch disk back at the startup drive. You will need to point the scratch back to a second drive to get the best performance from Photoshop.