resolving an alias

[erikv11]

I need to recall an item that is buried in my backups: as i changed drives/OS's I carried along the alias but (unknowingly) not the original.

when I double-click the alias the report i get from the finder is "the volume for <filename> can not be found"

is there any way to find out where an (orphaned) alias is looking to find its original?

command-i in Finder or Path Finder won't do it.

suggestions? seems like there oughta be a unix or script command or something ...

thanks

[DeltaMac]

CMD-i on the alias should show the 'original' path, but that no longer exists, does it? can you find the file using CMD-F and typing name of file? maybe you no longer have the original file at all.

[erikv11]

thanks for replying, DeltaMac.

indeed the file is no longer here (I looked everywhere ...) but i suspect it is present in one of my backups. i will go and look for it, whether i figure this out or not, but here is the rub:

CMD-I does not show the original path in this case, now that the original is gone. This behavior is not unique, to this file, if I create a new alias, then delete the original, CMD-I still gives no info about where the original was. If CMD-I did show me that path, I would know exactly where/which backup to look at for the file I'm after.

So my question is something a general one too (plus I need that file!):

Is there a way to see how the alias is trying to resolve, once the original is gone? Where is the alias looking?

thanks -