Disappearing disk drive.

In addition to the internal hard drive I have two external hard drives on my system, one for Time Machine and the other for iTunes. Suddenly the music drive has disappeared from Devices in Finder.
If I click on My Computer all three discs are shown and I can access the files, iTunes has no problem accessing the files, but I cannot get the disc to show under Devices. I have run Disk Utility, verified the disc, OK, unmounted and mounted it, OK, but it still does not appear. HELP!

just drag the drive from finder to the devices section of the sidebar.

Similar Messages

Disk drive disappears

I've got a Powermac G4 DP 800 that the disk drive works fine, but when I attach a hard drive to the ATA ribbon, neither drive shows up,not in Disk Utility, not even in System Profiler. Unhook the hard drive, again disk drive works fine. Tried a different hard drive, same thing happens. Changed locations on the ribbon, same thing happens. The hard drives came out of an iMac G5 that went down,so I was just sticking my hard drives in the G4 for some more storage. Even if both hard drives were bad, why would the disk drive disappear even in Disk Profiler? Looks like the computer would still see the disk drive.

The problem now is the HDs are SATA with no master slave jumper settings. I can have a 160gb hd, a80gb hd, or a disk drive. I've got an open spot for a card. I'll get a card and ribbon and I'll see how that works. Neither the WD 160 nor the Seagate 80 have any jumper settings for master/slave and I've got them on SATA/IDE adapters to attach to the ribbons. I'll let you know if it helps.
It would help to have the specifics of your setup since there's things beyond standards specifications here (this is generally helpful when asking any hardware question, especially if you have made modifications to the computer). I have a dual 800 G4 tower and it doesn't take SATA drives, so I am guessing that you have an SATA PCI card. Also, I'm surprised they made SATA drives as small as 80GB and 160GB. Can you provide specific model numbers for these drives?

All itunes song on ext disk drive - try shuffle - songs disappear

I have all of my itunes songs on an external disk drive. When I put in my new second gen. shuffle, most of songs disappear. I eject the ipod and re-boot and all of the songs are back. I have tried another second gen. shuffle and the same thing happens. Thoughts?

I'm wondering if you're getting a windows drive letter confusion when the shuffle is plugged in. (If the drive letter for the external changes, then iTunes would not be able to track the song down because it would be looking for them on the wrong drive.)
Windows confuses iPod with network drive or hard drive and may keep iPod from mounting or songs may seem to disappear
(The issue doesn't just affect iPod connections ... see the link through to the Microsoft article for a bit more detail on the possible symptoms with other hardware, like external drives.)

Disappearing Hard Drive Space After Yosemite Update

After installing OS X Yosemite my hard drive space has dwindled to basically nothing, rendering my computer useless. I had at least 50 gb (maybe more) of hard drive space before updating from mavericks to yosemite. Now, after using my computer for 30 mins or less I get an error message saying that my storage space is low. After a restart I will get about 600 mb of storage but then the cycle repeats. Since I have upgraded to Yosemite I have not saved or downloaded any large files but there is a significant amount of storage space (104 gb) used in the other category. It is not consistent with my usage. I initially had file vault encryption turned on but I thought maybe that was the cause of my disappearing hard drive space so I turned file encryption off and still no luck.
Please Help!
Problem description:
Hard drive space disappearing after installing OS X Yosemite.
EtreCheck version: 2.1.8 (121)
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Hardware Information: ℹ️
    MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2012) (Technical Specifications)
    MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro10,2
    1 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 CPU: 2-core
    8 GB RAM Not upgradeable
        BANK 0/DIMM0
            4 GB DDR3 1600 MHz ok
        BANK 1/DIMM0
            4 GB DDR3 1600 MHz ok
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    Wireless: en0: 802.11 a/b/g/n
    Battery Health: Normal - Cycle count 427
Video Information: ℹ️
    Intel HD Graphics 4000
        Color LCD spdisplays_2560x1600Retina
System Software: ℹ️
    OS X 10.10.1 (14B25) - Time since boot: 0:34:43
Disk Information: ℹ️
    APPLE SSD SM256E disk0 : (251 GB)
        EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB
        Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted> [Recovery]: 650 MB
        Macintosh HD (disk1) / [Startup]: 249.77 GB (645 MB free) (Low!)
            Core Storage: disk0s2 250.14 GB Online
USB Information: ℹ️
    Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)
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        /Library/Application Support/Roxio
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        Size of backup disk: Excellent
            Backup size 2.00 TB > (Disk size 249.77 GB X 3)
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    Feb 11, 2015, 01:12:53 AM    /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/CleanApp Daemon_2015-02-11-011253_[redacted].crash
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You are too low on drive space for iDVD to run properly. It is recommended that you try to have about 15-20 GB free for the application to run. See if you can delete anything to free up more space. Or, move more of your files to your external drive. iDVD needs to be on your computer's drive, so don't move it, or any of the iLife applications to your external drive.
You can create iMovies on an external drive, move your entire iPhoto and iTunes libraries to external drives, but I find iDVD works better if I create its projects on my main drive. I save all of my iDVD projects as disk image files and then move those files to my external drive for saving my projects. This allows me to delete the original iDVD project and the original iMovie project used in it, which gives more free space on my drives.

Urgent Help Needed - Frozen disk drive & mouse

This is quite a complicated situation, but i will put it simply:
I woke my mac from its sleep, and went to connect to the internet(wanadoo broadband. It wouldnt do it and went from saying 'connecting....connecting...'on the finder bar in the right hand corner(next to where the time is)and said 'disconnecting...' over and over. This usually last a few seconds but 5 minutes later it was still doing it, so i went to restart the mac.
When it was restarting, it went to the login page, and it never does this, so i went to use the mouse to click on it, but it wouldnt move from the top left corner of the screen. So, i used the keyboard to select it and logged in. Once it had got into the finder the mouse still wouldnt move. The time kept coming on and then disappearing again over and over.
I have tried opening Norton Disk doctor but i can select any options because the mouse wont work and a live update comes up before it opens and i cant select the option of not to use it. I have tried several things, i restarted using the on/of button and no change, i have unplugged all the usb devices but nothing has changed.The disk drive wont open either when i click on the eject key. So i cant reboot from a disc because
1)disk drive wont open
2)I cant click on the apple in the top left corner to go to the restart option and then hold down any keys.
The only reason i am on the net is cos i have used my flat mates pc to hook up on the net so i can get some advice, the apple helpline wont help me as i no longer have apple care plan, and i dont want to go out and travel to a different city to get hold of a new mouse, if it isnt the initial problem.
I really need help because i have work to do and deadlines to meet and even though i have the work backed up on an external hardrive, i cant access it because what i am using is a pc and my work is formatted for a mac. I also didnt get round to backing up all my music from itunes, so i really hope it doesnt come to formatting my hardrive because i dont want to lose all my files.
Can anyone help me please? Im desperate

StreeX,
If you have time, search the Discussions for "Disk Doctor Kervorkian". Symantec Systemworks / Norton Disk Doctor is widely and consistintly blamed for making things worse, sometimes irrepairablly so. (So be grateful you couldn't select it.)
You wisely unplugged other USB peripherals, but did you try unplugging and re-pluging the keyboard and mouse? Also try disconnecting your Ethernet (and phone line if any). The only peripherals should be the keyboard and mouse.
Does the mouse's red LED light up when the computer is on? Try both with the mouse plugged into the keyboard and with the mouse plugged directly into the Mac.
You can force the optical tray to open by holding down the mouse button while starting up. It's also possible to carefully (and gently!) pry the drawer and then the tray open with a fingernail of X-acto type knife blade.
You can force the Mac to restart unconditionally holding down command-control-eject (see Magical Macintosh Key Sequences)
Can you get the Mac to start up in Safe Mode?
With the optical tray open you can try booting from youe OS X Install disc to run Repair Disk to check for errors. An alternative is to boot to single-user mode and run the file system check utility. Refer to Using Disk Utility and fsck.

Use as disk drive?

Is there a way to use the itouch as disk drive? My old ipod would show up as a drive in My Computer but this one doesn't.
I have it set to manually sync so I can use it on my 2 home computers and my work computer. I've been going back and forth between the two work home computers fine, but when I connected it to my work computer all of a sudden my music is gone! It's like it's still there, just can't be accessed b/c iTunes shows 9.5 gb of "other" which is the amount of music I had.
I have a program called Sharepod that I used on my old ipod to transfer music from the ipod to the computer, and can also recover "lost" files, but b/c my ipod isn't showing up as a disk drive, sharepod can't find it either.
The old ipods had an option iTunes to "use as a disk drive" but that's not an option with this one...

As for using it as a disc drive, I stopped trying, I didn't use my old one that way much anyway.
As for the music disappearing and having the same amount of "other", this happened to me too one time. I use a program (can't remember the name of it off the top of my head) that allows you to view the contents of your ipod (like viewing it as a hard drive) and the files are all still there (obviously, since there's that same amount of memory listed as "other"). I was able to copy the music to my computer then back onto the ipod. I lost my playlists and play-counts unfortunately, but at least I was able to retrieve all my music.

Disk Drives not showing in Sidebar or on Desktop. Any ideas?

All,
I'm having a strange problem that I first noticed last night. It appears that the internal disk drive on my PowerBook G4 does not show up on the desktop or in the Finder's sidebar, despite selecting these options in the Finder's preferences.
I do know that it was there when I first installed Leopard, but I'm not entirely sure when the icons disappeared. Nothing I do brings it back. This includes trashing all Finder and Sidebar preferences, trashing all caches, repairing permissions, and zapping the PRAM (I didn't expect results, but it was worth a try, I figured).
When I click on the icon for my computer, all that shows up is "Network". It's almost like the disk drive is invisible to the Finder. All other icons show up in the sidebar as they're supposed to, including iDisk, CD-DVD images, and flash drives.
I have the option selected in the Finder to show the path to the current folder in any given Finder window. I can access the hard drive that way.
Here's something else that's weird - when I have a new Finder window open, I click the "Path" button (addition to the toolbar). My internal hard drive is NOT SELECTABLE when I do this. It appears, but it's grayed out for some reason.
Has anyone else seen this? I'm going to file a bug report with Apple. If I hear anything, I'll post back.
Thanks!

UPDATE:
I found this article on the web:
http://www.pinkmutant.com/articles/invisible.html
So, as suspected, my internal hard disk became "invisible" somehow. My best guess is something happened when I auto-updated iTunes and/or QuickTime. See the article for details on the "SetFile" command.
Anyway, here's the AppleScript code that I found, and this should take care of it:
tell application "System Events"
set visible of disk "NameofDisk" to true
end tell
You should be able to launch the Script Editor application, enter the code, and click the "Run" button. That should fix the issue, after you log off and back on again (or restart the Finder).
I'll try this tonight when I get home. Meanwhile, if anyone else has this problem and can try this solution now, please do so and post your experience(s).
Thanks!

IMac running 10.6.8. Slow start up. Disappearing hard drive space

I have 46.5 GB available on my hard drive at startup, but it quckly goes down to 0. I can watch it disappear. Disk drive seems to be running all the time. When I restart it goes back up to 46GB.

Active Memory: 610.5 MB
Free Memory: 447.5 MB
Wired Memory: 147.7 MB
Used Memory: 1.56 GB
Inactive Memory: 841.4 MB
Total VM: 158.31 GB
Number of processes: 66
PID    Process Name              User       CPU      Real Mem        Virtual Mem
0      kernel_task               root       0.8      123.2 MB        1.12 GB
1      launchd                   root       0.0      1.0 MB          2.34 GB
10     kextd                     root       0.0      3.1 MB          2.34 GB
11     DirectoryService          root       0.0      5.9 MB          2.34 GB
12     notifyd                   root       0.0      592 KB          2.33 GB
13     diskarbitrationd          root       0.0      1.5 MB          2.33 GB
14     configd                   root       0.0      3.0 MB          2.36 GB
15     syslogd                   root       0.0      1.7 MB          2.34 GB
16     distnoted                 daemon     0.0      1.2 MB          2.33 GB
17     blued                     root       0.0      5.5 MB          2.35 GB
18     mDNSResponder             _mdnsrespo 0.0      1.9 MB          2.35 GB
26     securityd                 root       0.0      2.7 MB          2.35 GB
30     racoon                    root       0.0      1.4 MB          2.33 GB
31     coreservicesd             root       0.0      20.7 MB         2.36 GB
32     awacsd                    root       0.0      5.4 MB          2.35 GB
34     ntpd                      root       0.0      1.1 MB          2.32 GB
35     cupsd                     root       0.0      2.2 MB          2.34 GB
36     nmbd                      root       0.0      1.4 MB          2.32 GB
37     krb5kdc                   root       0.0      2.3 MB          2.33 GB
41     usbmuxd                   _usbmuxd   0.0      2.4 MB          2.35 GB
46     mds                       root       0.0      59.9 MB         2.71 GB
47     loginwindow               toddmaryav 0.0      7.9 MB          2.62 GB
48     KernelEventAgent          root       0.0      1,008 KB        2.33 GB
50     hidd                      root       0.0      944 KB          2.33 GB
51     fseventsd                 root       0.0      1.9 MB          2.34 GB
53     dynamic_pager             root       0.0      788 KB          2.32 GB
59     autofsd                   root       0.0      984 KB          2.33 GB
65     com.avast.proxy           root       0.0      3.2 MB          2.34 GB
67     com.avast.fileshield      root       0.0      1.1 MB          2.33 GB
77     socketfilterfw            root       0.0      3.0 MB          2.35 GB
107    WindowServer              _windowser 1.9      32.7 MB         2.65 GB
200    cvmsServ                  root       0.0      816 KB          2.33 GB
223    coreaudiod                _coreaudio 0.0      1.5 MB          2.34 GB
254    mdworker                  _spotlight 0.0      13.7 MB         2.36 GB
470    com.avast.MacAvast.MAD    root       0.0      3.3 MB          590.8 MB
471    com.avast.MacAvast.MAD    root       0.1      44.1 MB         720.8 MB
637    launchd                   _cvmsroot 0.0      672 KB          2.34 GB
639    cvmsComp_x86_64           _cvmsroot 0.0      6.2 MB          2.34 GB
642    launchd                   toddmaryav 0.0      924 KB          2.34 GB
646    Dock                      toddmaryav 0.0      15.0 MB         2.63 GB
647    SystemUIServer            toddmaryav 0.1      12.8 MB         2.63 GB
648    Finder                    toddmaryav 0.0      28.5 MB         2.69 GB
652    fontd                     toddmaryav 0.0      3.5 MB          2.37 GB
668    UserEventAgent            toddmaryav 0.0      5.4 MB          2.35 GB
675    AirPort Base Station Agen toddmaryav 0.0      5.5 MB          2.61 GB
677    com.avast.helper          toddmaryav 0.0      6.5 MB          10.62 GB
678    MacKeeper Helper          toddmaryav 0.3      88.8 MB         3.70 GB
685    CCacheServer              toddmaryav 0.0      1.6 MB          2.34 GB
700    Microsoft AU Daemon       toddmaryav 0.0      9.8 MB          1.03 GB
702    Speech Synthesis Server   toddmaryav 0.0      4.6 MB          2.60 GB
703    Transport Monitor         toddmaryav 0.1      14.0 MB         1.07 GB
704    iTunes Helper             toddmaryav 0.0      2.9 MB          2.60 GB
726    aosnotifyd                toddmaryav 0.0      3.5 MB          2.35 GB
727    ocspd                     root       0.0      1.2 MB          2.32 GB
729    pboard                    toddmaryav 0.0      844 KB          2.32 GB
739    smbd                      root       0.0      2.5 MB          2.34 GB
755    smbd                      root       0.0      336 KB          2.33 GB
766    automountd                root       0.0      1,000 KB        2.33 GB
776    traceroute                toddmaryav 0.0      412 KB          2.32 GB
778    mdworker                  toddmaryav 0.0      9.3 MB          2.35 GB
779    Activity Monitor          toddmaryav 5.3      21.6 MB         2.68 GB
783    cvmsComp_x86_64           toddmaryav 0.0      6.3 MB          2.34 GB
784    activitymonitord          root       0.6      1.2 MB          2.33 GB
831    helpd                     toddmaryav 0.0      22.3 MB         2.37 GB
864    ReportCrash               root       0.0      15.4 MB         2.36 GB
881    AntiVirus                 root       99.7     139.9 MB        760.8 MB

Comparison of SSD with hard disk drives

Attribute or characteristic
Solid-state drive
Hard disk drive
Spin-up time
Instantaneous.
May take several seconds. With a large number of drives, spin-up may need to be staggered to limit total power drawn.
Random access time[45]
About 0.1 ms - many times faster than HDDs because data is accessed directly from the flash memory
Ranges from 5–10 ms due to the need to move the heads and wait for the data to rotate under the read/write head
Read latency time[46]
Generally low because the data can be read directly from any location; In applications where hard disk seeks are the limiting factor, this results in faster boot and application launch times (see Amdahl's law).[47]
Generally high since the mechanical components require additional time to get aligned
Consistent read performance[48]
Read performance does not change based on where data is stored on an SSD
If data is written in a fragmented way, reading back the data will have varying response times
Defragmentation
SSDs do not benefit from defragmentation because there is little benefit to reading data sequentially and any defragmentation process adds additional writes on the NAND flash that already have a limited cycle life.[49][50]
HDDs may require defragmentation after continued operations or erasing and writing data, especially involving large files or where the disk space becomes low. [51]
Acoustic levels
SSDs have no moving parts and make no sound
HDDs have moving parts (heads, spindle motor) and have varying levels of sound depending upon model
Mechanical reliability
A lack of moving parts virtually eliminates mechanical breakdowns
HDDs have many moving parts that are all subject to failure over time
Susceptibility toenvironmental factors[47][52][53]
No flying heads or rotating platters to fail as a result of shock, altitude, or vibration
The flying heads and rotating platters are generally susceptible to shock, altitude, and vibration
Magneticsusceptibility[citation needed]
No impact on flash memory
Magnets or magnetic surges can alter data on the media
Weight and size[52]
The weight of flash memory and the circuit board material are very light compared to HDDs
Higher performing HDDs require heavier components than laptop HDDs that are light, but not as light as SSDs
Parallel operation[citation needed]
Some flash controllers can have multiple flash chips reading and writing different data simultaneously
HDDs have multiple heads (one per platter) but they are connected, and share one positioning motor.
Write longevity
Solid state drives that use flash memory have a limited number of writes over the life of the drive.[54][55][56][57] SSDs based on DRAM do not have a limited number of writes.
Magnetic media do not have a limited number of writes.
Software encryption limitations
NAND flash memory cannot be overwritten, but has to be rewritten to previously erased blocks. If a software encryption program encrypts data already on the SSD, the overwritten data is still unsecured, unencrypted, and accessible (drive-based hardware encryption does not have this problem). Also data cannot be securely erased by overwriting the original file without special "Secure Erase" procedures built into the drive.[58]
HDDs can overwrite data directly on the drive in any particular sector.
Cost
As of October 2010, NAND flash SSDs cost about (US)$1.40–2.00 per GB
As of October 2010, HDDs cost about (US)$0.10/GB for 3.5 in and $0.20/GB for 2.5 in drives
Storage capacity
As of October 2010, SSDs come in different sizes up to 2TB but are typically 512GB or less[59]
As of October 2010, HDDs are typically 2-3TB or less
Read/write performance symmetry
Less expensive SSDs typically have write speeds significantly lower than their read speeds. Higher performing SSDs and those from particular manufacturers have a balanced read and write speed.[citation needed]
HDDs generally have symmetrical read and write speeds
Free block availability andTRIM
SSD write performance is significantly impacted by the availability of free, programmable blocks. Previously written data blocks that are no longer in use can be reclaimed by TRIM; however, even with TRIM, fewer free, programmable blocks translates into reduced performance.[25][60][61]
HDDs are not affected by free blocks or the operation (or lack) of the TRIM command
Power consumption
High performance flash-based SSDs generally require 1/2 to 1/3 the power of HDDs; High performance DRAM SSDs generally require as much power as HDDs and consume power when the rest of the system is shut down.[62][63]
High performance HDDs generally require between 12-18 watts; drives designed for notebook computers are typically 2 watts.

I wish I could get my head round the SSD vs HDD with a NLE rig. My builder is trying to persuade me to use a Toshiba 256Gb THNSNC256GBSJ for OS and programs, and it is only NZ$20 more expensive than the 450Gb 10k rpm VelociRaptor I was originally planing to use for the OS. That sounds suspiciously cheap to me, and I am concerned about the finite writes to SSD - mainly because I don't really understand it.
The rest of the new build is
3930K
Gigabyte X79-UD5
8 x DDR3 1600
Coolermaster with 750W PSU
Geforce GTX570
I plan to transfer the drives from my current system as a starting point, and reassess after giving it some use. That means
Either the above SSD or 450Gb 10k Raptor for OS (new drives)
300Gb 10k rpm Raptor (currently used for OS in old box)
150Gb 7k4 rpm Raptor (reserved for Photoshop Scratch in old box)
2 x 1Tb WD Blacks (data drives)
2 x 1Tb WD USB3 externals
I don't know how I would configure the drives in the new box, but have seen Harm's table and will try to follow his advice. It's a dreadful thing to admit, but I don't have a backup strategy, and the above drives are well over half full. Well over! And I am only just getting serious about video, (the rest is mainly CR2 files from my Canon 1Ds3 and 1D4)
I know it must be like banging your head against the wall, but should I avoid that SSD and go with the 450G Raptor? I have read a comment that the WD Blacks don't work well as Raid0. Is that BS or true?
I am about to give the go-ahead so need to confirm the spec.

How do I install CS6 on my new imac without a disk drive?

I purchased cs6 on dvd from adobe under a year ago and now want to install it on my new imac.How do I install it on the imac without a disk drive?

Giddy,
You can go ahead and follow the link below to download the CS6 for you.
http://forums.adobe.com/message/4295655#4295655
-Mandhir

Just bought a Lenovo 3000 N200 without a hard disk drive, need software

I just bought a Lenovo 3000 N200 Type 0769-BLG assembly date 07/09 from e-bay, it looks brand new but it had a fault, it was dead, perhaps a faulty motherboard and the hard disk drive had been removed. Assuming I can get the fault fixed, where can I get the Lenovo software that came with the original hard disk drive, I would prefer a free source, if that is possible, perhaps some kind person has put all of the CD's on to a DVD that I can borrow or buy a copy of. I was an IBM employee for 30 years before retiring 15 years ago. Dan McLean in Scotland, UK.

Call customer service directly to get a quick solution for this.
IPnaSh
First Spanish Community Guru - Colaborador ad honorem

Regarding the product time capsule...is the modem the same as airport extreme and is the disk drive always running? I'm worried about it lasting for at least five years.

Regarding the product Time Capsule... is the modem the same as the Airport extreme and is the disk drive always running??? I'm worried about it lasting at least five years.

John,
I'd pay good money to bet it wouldn't last 5 years... I don't rate the in built power supply and as for "server grade hard disk" - Hmmmm..... The failure rate of all HD's on the market after 3 year is 60%.
Regards,
Shawn

I can't copy my itunes library to an external hard disk drive!!

this is my first time at the forum and i dont find a better way to ask, i want to copy my itunes library to an external hard disk drive for have a back up, but when i try to copy it it appears this message "the item "itunes music" has 1 or more items that are in use and cannot be modified", i dont know why, then i search for help in apple support and this article http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751, but i do what it says and i still having my problem, i can't copy my music, that message keep's appearing and it dont let me copy my music.

forget it i discover my problem, this message gives u 2 option stop or continue i just click continue and it get copied, i think this is normal but like this is my fisrt time i dot this i get confused, i think i still used to windows, i cant believe because i have a ear with this computer. well anything is a good experience.

How can I optimize my hard disk drive usage and performance in Windows 8 or Windows 7?

QuestionHow can I optimize my hard disk drive usage and performance in Windows 8 or Windows 7?
AnswerThere are a few simple steps you can take to ensure your hard disk drive is used optimally.
Use Toshiba HDD Protection
Many Toshiba laptops come with a program called Toshiba HDD Protection pre-installed. This program helps to protect your hard disk drive from being damaged due to falls or impacts. By default, it should already be enabled. You might be tempted to lower the detection levels in this application, but doing so could cause your hard disk drive to be damaged. Remember that while the application can reduce the chance of damage, you should still avoid allowing the laptop to fall or suffer rapid impacts.
For more information on this utility, see the following article:
TOSHIBA HDD Protection
Optimize the drive
Windows 8 and Windows 7 optimize hard disk drives automatically through a process called defragmentation. Unless you've disabled this, you don't need to do anything. If you have disabled this and want to run the process, you can still do so.
In Windows 8, search for "Defrag" at the Windows Start screen and select "Defragment and optimize your drives."
In Windows 7, search for "Defrag" in the Start Menu's search field and select "Disk defragmenter."
You can use this tool to optimize your hard disk drives, allowing Windows to find needed files faster.
Remove items from startup
Some applications run automatically when Windows starts. This can add additional functionality, but it also decreases the performance of your computer. Sometimes you might want to disable certain programs from starting automatically.
In Windows 8, search for "Task Manager" at the Start screen. Select the "Startup" tab. Select an application you'd like to disable from starting automatically and then click the "Disable" button in the lower-right.
In Windows 7, type "msconfig" in the Start Menu's search field and press ENTER. Uncheck the boxes next to applications you'd like to disable from starting automatically.
You should be sure of the purpose of an application before disabling it from starting automatically. Some applications might be important. If in doubt, you might consider searching on the Web to discover more information about a program. Remember that if you find that you disabled something vital, you can always re-enable it.
For more information, please see the following video:

QuestionHow can I optimize my hard disk drive usage and performance in Windows 8 or Windows 7?
AnswerThere are a few simple steps you can take to ensure your hard disk drive is used optimally.
Use Toshiba HDD Protection
Many Toshiba laptops come with a program called Toshiba HDD Protection pre-installed. This program helps to protect your hard disk drive from being damaged due to falls or impacts. By default, it should already be enabled. You might be tempted to lower the detection levels in this application, but doing so could cause your hard disk drive to be damaged. Remember that while the application can reduce the chance of damage, you should still avoid allowing the laptop to fall or suffer rapid impacts.
For more information on this utility, see the following article:
TOSHIBA HDD Protection
Optimize the drive
Windows 8 and Windows 7 optimize hard disk drives automatically through a process called defragmentation. Unless you've disabled this, you don't need to do anything. If you have disabled this and want to run the process, you can still do so.
In Windows 8, search for "Defrag" at the Windows Start screen and select "Defragment and optimize your drives."
In Windows 7, search for "Defrag" in the Start Menu's search field and select "Disk defragmenter."
You can use this tool to optimize your hard disk drives, allowing Windows to find needed files faster.
Remove items from startup
Some applications run automatically when Windows starts. This can add additional functionality, but it also decreases the performance of your computer. Sometimes you might want to disable certain programs from starting automatically.
In Windows 8, search for "Task Manager" at the Start screen. Select the "Startup" tab. Select an application you'd like to disable from starting automatically and then click the "Disable" button in the lower-right.
In Windows 7, type "msconfig" in the Start Menu's search field and press ENTER. Uncheck the boxes next to applications you'd like to disable from starting automatically.
You should be sure of the purpose of an application before disabling it from starting automatically. Some applications might be important. If in doubt, you might consider searching on the Web to discover more information about a program. Remember that if you find that you disabled something vital, you can always re-enable it.
For more information, please see the following video:

I have an iPad 2 and iPhone 4 and for them I use I cloud I have also 1 pc windows and at work place I use windows pc ; until now my files are stored on an external disk drive could' I use iCloud to perform the backup of my external disk drive ? Thanks

I have an iPad 2 and iPhone 4 and for them I use I cloud I have also 1 pc windows and at work place I use windows pc ; until now my files are stored on an external disk drive could' I use iCloud to perform the backup of my external disk drive ? Thanks
Loredano

These are the options you have.
Budget $1299.
http://www.apple.com/macbookair/
http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/
Best.

Disappearing disk drive.

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