frozen menubar, disappearing icons
An out-of-control mds process can show itself with a number of symptoms across the menubar:
— disappearing or frozen Spotlight icon in the right-hand corner
— the menubar clock stopping
— other menubar icons like TM frozen or failing to appear
Try this quick-fix solution with the Activity Monitor:
1. Open Activity Monitor.app (Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor.app)
2. Select ‘All Processes’ from the drop down menu next to the search bar (called ‘Filter:’) and type in ‘mds’.
3. Select the process name ‘mds‘ with user ‘root‘. Click the ‘Quit Process’ button at the top. You will be asked to supply your password.
Posted on January 14, 2012, in OS X Lion, Snow Leopard and tagged can't see, clock, control, disappeared, don't show, frozen, icon, mds, menu bar, menubar, missing, out of control, problem, problem with menubar, process, quit, repair, running, Spotlight, stopped, vanished, wild. Bookmark the permalink. 2 Comments.
applehelpwriter.wordpress.com 
It is true that you can’t upgrade to Lion unless you’re on 10.6.6 or later. But you can install Lion on any Mac that meets the basic hardware requirements, so long as you have the USB flash installer or the .dmg assets included in the App store download.
The difference between upgrade and install is really whether you want to use Migration Assistant or Time Machine to move over all your current user accounts, apps and preferences. If you install a clean copy of Lion onto a blank HFS+ disk, however, it is still possible to move over your user accounts manually. Maybe that might be a good topic for a future post (thanks for the idea)!
Dear Phil: thanks again for all your articles. And thanks for correcting me about the need for Snow Leopard to upgrade to Lion. All I’ve read and heard say you must have Snow Leopard to upgrade to Lion. I even bought two extra copies of Snow Leopard just in case…. How do you know all this stuff? Did you take all the Apple certification courses or something? I’ve been a Mac user since my first computer purchase in 1986, and I don’t know near what you know. But or course I probably aren’t as diligent in learning all the ends and outs of the Mac. I know the basics and some of the more advanced stuff. You’re the Uk’s Ted Landau! BTW, where do you live in the UK?