Internal Disk gone

I had the flashing question mark folder, and after trying the various options after clicking 'options' I decided to re-install os x on external hard drive.
So now I can use the laptop, but obviously there's nothing on it because external harddrive was empty.
Is there a way of getting back to the Internal disk and previous contents, desktop etc?
Thanks!

Can you see the disk in Disk Utility?
Do you have a backup?
If the answers are no, there are data recovery services that might be able to recover some data for you. They are extremely expensive.
Allan

Similar Messages

Internal disk power off

I wonder if anyone can offer any tips or advice?
Is it possible to boot an iMac off SSD and keep the internal hard disk powered down, I.e. not spinning?
My desk acts like an enormous sound board and I get a loud hum whenever I have a spinning hard disk on the desk.
FYI, I don't have the iMac yet, just considering my options. Yes I can buy one with internal SSD only, but you can only get these from the Apple Store and never discounted. I can get a good deal elsewhere on new iMacs, but none with internal SSD.
If I unmount the drive I think it will go to sleep after a while, but I think (not sure) it will mount itself and spin up on every reboot. Is there a way to keep it dismounted and powered off (without cracking the iMac open?
Thanks

phmayet (Philipp),
I am trying to do this on a 3.0.2 server.
It appears the minimum rpm's needed to make this work are:
hpsmh-6.3.1-23.x86_64.rpm <-- this one install the web portal and is successful, Port 2381 is opened but the SMH homepage is for the most part empty as there are no agents installed.
hp-health-8.5.0.23-23.rhel5.x86_64.rpm <-- this one is needed by hp-snmp-agents and won't install because of missing libraries (libc.so.6 and libpthread.so.0)
hp-snmp-agents-8.5.0.17-19.rhel5.x86_64.rpm <-- this one seems to be needed to configure hpasm and complains of many missing libraries and net-snmp
hpasm-8.0.0-173.rhel5.x86_64.rpm <- this one installs ok, but when you run hpasm activate it complains that hp-snmp is not there
With only hpsmh and hpasm installed I did not see much in the way of useful information.
I really am only curious about monitoring the RAM (we have had DIMM's fail in the past and SMH informed us), Power Supplies (these too have gone out and its nice to know one of the two redundant ones have failed), monitoring the HBA that will connect the shared storage to this server, and I would suppose the internal Disk/Raidset that OVM will be installed on. Since we are using all Shared Storage for the Guests the last one is not as vital.
Has anyone else attempted to make this work or know of a better way to monitor the hardware?

Can't unmount an internal disk that I installed in my tower

Years ago, I added a supplemental internal hard drive (Maxtor) to increase my storage capacity. It continues to work fine. But...
I'd like to be able to do maintenance on it (verify the directory, make any repairs, etc.), and for that, I need to be able to unmount this disk.
Note: there is no eject icon next to the disk's name in my Finder window.
I always get the error message that the volume could not be unmounted, and I've tried to unmount it several ways:
- Used Terminal to try to unmount
- Used Disk Utility to try to verify &/or repair
- Started up with a bootable clone and tried
- Started up with a bootable Disk Warrior CD and tried
- Tried to reformat/erase the disk (couldn't)
I have backed up to this drive, using "erase & copy files" (from a sparse image backup), and that worked, so apparently it didn't need to unmount the disk to do that. But I can't copy my computer over to my laptop (in Target Disk Mode), apparently due to this problem. Sigh.
Disk Utility tells me to be sure all folders, files, etc. are not in use on this disk, and then maybe it will unmount. But I see nothing in use or open.
NOTE: I have Sys 9 installed on that volume. For a while, I thought maybe OS X somehow keeps a file open that's related to OS 9 (like maybe sort of having it "stand by" in case Classic needs to load when I try to open an old file or something). But that doesn't seem to be the case after all, since I've booted from a bootable clone on a different, external drive (meaning my normal boot drive is not loaded), and the problem persists. But wait, maybe the clone I've booted from is somehow activating the OS 9 disk in that way, still. But wait, that can't be it, since I've booted from Disk Warrior CD and the problem persists.
Shouldn't I be able to do maintenance on that additionally installed internal disk? And doesn't it have to unmount for that? But how can I get it to unmount? If there is a directory problem causing this, how can I repair the directory to resolve the unmounting problem, if it won't unmunt to accept the repairs? And why isn't there a way to just erase the disk and start over? I guess it has to be unmounted first, fir ANYthing. But HOW??
Many thanks.
G-4 tower Mac OS X (10.4.7)
450 mHz

Hi, Larry.
You wrote: "I always get the error message that the volume could not be unmounted"This implies that you have either:
a. A file open that is saved on that disk.
b. An application or background process running that was either launched from that disk or is using a file on that disk.
c. A Startup Item or Login Item is either being launched from that disk or using a file on that disk, akin to points (a) and (b). See my "Troubleshooting Startup and Login Items" FAQ.
Try restarting in Safe Mode and after logging in, launch Disk Utility.
Good luck!
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X
Note: The information provided in the link(s) above is freely available. However, because I own The X Lab™, a commercial Web site to which some of these links point, the Apple Discussions Terms of Use require I include the following disclosure statement with this post:
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

How to install Windows 7 on extra Internal Disk

Apple's latest "Boot Camp Installation & Setup Guide" does not provide clear instructions to accomplish what I believe to be possible. A review of this forum for past articles provides more clues, but still leaves me wondering what are the actual steps to achieve my goal:
Install Windows 7 on my MacPro on an internal disk that is not in the first hard drive bay. I want to make the Windows disk it's own single partition, and keep my MacOS on it's own drive as it currently exists.
Here's what Apple's latest guide states:
"If you have a MacPro with more than one internal disk and you want to install Boot Camp on a disk that isn't in the first hard drive bay, remove the drives in the lower numbered bays. You can reinstall the drives after you install Boot Camp."
I have a call in to Apple Support and it was immediately bumped up to Engineering because none whom I spoke with were able to answer the question. In fact, they told me that no one had ever asked the question before!
So I would like to understand the actual steps. Could I boot from the Windows CD and choose the internal disk I want to install it? Do I need Boot Camp to load and install the Apple supplied Windows drivers?
MacPro 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Xeon, 8 GB 1066 MHz DDR3, 3 internal drives. OS X 10.9.4

The disk I want to put Windows on is named "Windows HD". Here is the diskutil list from my machine:
Macintosh:~ bob$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
#:                      TYPE NAME                    SIZE      IDENTIFIER
0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *160.0 GB disk0
1:                        EFI EFI                    209.7 MB disk0s1
2:                  Apple_HFS Windows HD              159.2 GB disk0s2
/dev/disk1
#:                      TYPE NAME                    SIZE      IDENTIFIER
0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *640.1 GB disk1
1:                        EFI EFI                    209.7 MB disk1s1
2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            639.3 GB disk1s2
3:                Apple_Boot Recovery HD            650.0 MB disk1s3
/dev/disk2
#:                      TYPE NAME                    SIZE      IDENTIFIER
0:    Apple_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB disk2
1:        Apple_partition_map                        32.3 KB    disk2s1
2:                  Apple_HFS Video HD                500.0 GB disk2s3
/dev/disk3
#:                      TYPE NAME                    SIZE      IDENTIFIER
0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *2.0 TB    disk3
1:                        EFI EFI                    209.7 MB disk3s1
2:                  Apple_HFS Time Machine Backups    2.0 TB    disk3s2
Does this mean the Windows HD disk is already in the first hard drive bay; /dev/disk0?
My lack of clarity stems from the Apple instruction to remove my OSX boot drive. I have Windows 7 DVD install disk. Thank you for the help.

Is there a way to really get at the source of ongoing internal disk I/O?

On Mountain Lion, I'm noticing that the hard drive is being accessed considerably - I can hear it. As if it's some big sync or a big write to disk. And yet Activity Monitor shows very little - just a few little spikes in disk I/O when this happens. Since I can't identify a single application that would be causing that, I thought it might be swapping to disk. But there's 8GB on my MacBook Pro and I'm only using 1GB or so, as I have all applications closed but Terminal and a Safari using around 300MB or so. I had thought that it was mds that was consuming the I/O, but I disabled that temporarily and found the same I/O patterns. I see that there are no major processes running that are using more than 20% or so, via top, and I've also run iotop and fs_usage, which are either uninformative or provide way too much information. I'm very concerned that I'll eventually harm the hard drive if I'm accessing it literally all the time, and I'm certainly using a lot more battery if it's writing in these patterns. It could be a lot of things, but what I'd like to know is how can I best find out what's going on. It seems to be something internal. Is there a better tool to get at what's going on? Some filter I can apply to the existing tools?

Extracting this type of information can be difficult, especially when there is no big ticket item that shows up easily in diagnostic output. I am not an OS X guru in this area, but since no-one else has replied to your post I thought I would at least comment from the perspective of a long time UNIX admin. If you have already explored iotop and fs_usage, then it seems to me that you are on the right track. Perhaps your disk is just more noisy than you expect. If you can't find it using these low level commands, maybe there is nothing to find?
As far as background disk IO is concerned, Time Machine is an obvious choice, but you seem to be talking about your internal disk, so presumably that's not it.
Is your disk very full? I have had issues with fragmentation when I filled my disk too much, and perhaps your issue could be related to that. The general recommendation is that you need at least 10% of your disk free, although more free space is always better.
One other suggestion I can offer is that you may find lsof helpful, in that it may identify a file being written to which could help in tracking down disk IO. I've had good experiences with an app called "Rubbernet" that uses lsof to produce a graphical display of network traffic - perhaps running that would identify processes transferring data that are causing the disk IO?
I'm also assuming you're not running any type of BitTorrent client, as this could explain background disk IO too of course.
Sorry I couldn't offer anything more specific. I hope some of those ideas help you.
Ivan

After getting the dreaded gray/blue screen, I tried to run disk repair on the internal disk. I got an error message saying "Disk Utility can't repair this disk and restore your backed-up files. The volume Macintosh HD could not be verified completely

After getting the dreaded gray/blue screen, I tried to run disk repair on the internal disk. I got an error message saying "Disk Utility can't repair this disk and restore your backed-up files. The volume Macintosh HD could not be verified completely." What do I do now? This is an iMac and I'm running 10.6.8.

Clean Install of Snow Leopard
Be sure to make a backup first because the following procedure will erase
the drive and everything on it. See below for how to clone a drive.
     1. Boot the computer using the Snow Leopard Installer Disc or the Disc 1 that came
         with your computer. Insert the disc into the optical drive and restart the computer.
         After the chime press and hold down the "C" key. Release the key when you see
         a small spinning gear appear below the dark gray Apple logo.
     2. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue
         button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
         After DU loads select the hard drive entry from the left side list (mfgr.'s ID and drive
         size.) Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Set the number of
         partitions to one (1) from the Partitions drop down menu, click on Options button
         and select GUID, click on OK, then set the format type to MacOS Extended
         (Journaled, if supported), then click on the Apply button.
     3. When the formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed
         with the OS X installation and follow the directions included with the installer.
     4. When the installation has completed your computer will Restart into the Setup
         Assistant. Be sure you configure your initial admin account with the exact same
         username and password that you used on your old drive. After you finish Setup
         Assistant will complete the installation after which you will be running a fresh
         install of OS X. You can now begin the update process by opening Software
         Update and installing all recommended updates to bring your installation current.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.
You may be able to backup your data if you have an erased external drive you can use. Before you do the above but after you have opened Disk Utility you can try to clone your drive:
Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag
       it to the Destination entry field.
5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
      the Source entry field.
6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
Now this will only work if the drive is accessible and can be cloned by Disk Utility. Otherwise, you would need to access your drive from another Mac that you can connect via Firewire - Target Disk Mode.

I have Lion on an external hard-drive and I want to install it on the internal disk

I have Lion on an external hard-drive and I want to install it on the internal disk. How can I proceed?

I recently completed a clean install of Lion on an internal SSD. After wiping it clean, I used a thumb drive with SL on it to boot and then another thumb drive with Lion on it. It worked just fine. The only thing to be aware of is that if you use the thumb to install Lion from... it will not install a recovery partition and you'll have to use the thumb in the future.
That's what I wanted anyway so it's working out just fine. Good luck.
I should add... I used the SL thumb to actually boot from and used Disk Utlities to wipe the internal SSD. It does work and there are Apple posts that can guide you through the thumb drive process. I used copycat to create both the SL boot and Lion.

How do I repair the internal disk drive on an older iMac?

Running Snow Leopard OSX 10.6.8 on an older iMac. I ran Disk Utility and it found a problem requiring the internal disk to be repaired. The instructions said to boot the system using an installation CD. The only CD I have is for OSX 10.4.4 ( Tiger). I don't have one for Snow Leopard. I can access this CD and instructions on the CD, "About Apple Hardware Test" say to hold down the D key to boot into the diagnostics, or the hold down the "C" key to boot to the OS on the CD. Neither of these options work. It keep booting into Snow Leopard (OSX 10.6.8) and I cannot repair the internal disk drive without running on an OS started form the CD.
I've spent a couple of hours trying to get it to boot to the Tiger installation CD. Wish I had made an install CD for Snow Leopard. Maybe that would work. Is that what I need? I really think it should boot to the Tiger CD.
I've spent lots of time in these user forums and don't see anything that helps. Any suggestions?? Having trouble with doing automatic Time Machine backups to an external disk drive and maybe it is because of the corrupted hard drive. Although the error looks quite minor from the description in Disk Utility. The system runs fine and I don't see any other problems. Just struggling with Time Machine.
This is an older iMac, 4,1 with a 2.0 GHz Intel Core Duo with 2 GBytes of SDRAM. 20 inch screen. I have a MBP sitting next to it and use them both, even though I can't update the iMac to Lion or above because of the Core Due processor. It is still a good computer and very useful.
What do I have to do to get it to boot from a CD?
Thanks for your help,
veehb

That is well worth $20. I'll pick one up tomorrow. Is there an easy way to make an installatoin CD that will also be a backup for my installation?

I would like to make one static copy of Firefox, so I can restore it if I have a hard drive crash, or if I want to upgrade my internal disk, or if I want to have a duplicate on another replacement computer.

''dupe of https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/918473''
I would like to make one static copy of Firefox, so I can restore it if I have a hard drive crash, or if I want to upgrade my internal disk, or if I want to have a duplicate on another replacement computer.

Hi tchmielewski,
You should look into [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/what-firefox-sync Firefox Sync]. I think it will do everything that you are asking for. This will allow you to have all of your Firefox preferences and settings shared across multiple computers.
You could also create a backup on a USB drive in case of catastrophic failture. I would suggest that you back up your personal information and bookmarks using the article [[Backing up your information]].
Hopefully this helps!

Time Capsule Slow WLAN to internal disk with internet data transfers

All,
I've been experiencing slow responses from my Time Capsule since I got it. It is one of the newer models with dual band and I have a Macbook Pro and a Macbook connecting to the 802.11n network.
I use the internal disk of the Time Capsule as a NAS and I don't use it for Time Machine backups. It houses software, pictures and music files.
When I'm downloading files from the internet via Safari, or via Transmission (torrents) the wifi throughput of the WLAN slows down from about 5 megabytes per second to just a couple of hundred kilobytes per second.
For my tests I used a 2.2Gb DMG file (a Garageband Jampack) which was housed on the Time Capsule disk.
With Transmission running and downloading two torrents and seeding two torrents (capped upload of 2 kilobytes per second), the transfer of the file from the Time Capsule was 4 hours. I let it run a few hours just to determine that the ETA in Finder was fairly accurate.
With Transmission stopped, the transfer of the same file took 9 minutes.
With Transmission stopped but with Safari downloading a large file (400mb), the local Time Capsule file download to my Mac was again looking at around 4 hours.
It also impacts file uploads to the Time Capsule disk but no where near as badly as with downloads. According to activity monitor, throughput from the Time Capsule disk to my Mac over Wifi is around 200 kilobytes per seconds, writing to the Time Capsule was around 900 kilobytes per second.
Both upload and download speed increases dramatically when no internet based file transfers are taking place.
Now the odd thing. I have a TVIX 6500a media player attached to the Time Capsule via gigabit ethernet. In all the tests I've performed (using the same DMG file) the data transfer rate, both reading and writing to the TVIX has always been solid at nearly 5 megabytes per second.
It is almost like the Time Capsule prefers internet originated traffic over WLAN traffic to its own internal disk, and really throttles this traffic. And it lets traffic originating from other devices on the network through on all cylinders.
I know technically a Time Capsule is designed for Time Machine however I can't see how it would be a viable solution given the bad data rates when downloads are taking place.
Is there any way to get under the hood of a Time Capsule to make some adjustments? I wonder if anyone else has had any experience with this, and what might happen if I plug in a USB disk and use that instead. It is starting to look like I might have to get a decent NAS to connect to the Time Capsule but then it is just a larger heavier Airport Extreme.
Thanks in advance.

Mikecad1 -
I dont have any assistance to offer, but have experienced similar problems.
When trying to offload all my music from an external drive to a Time Capsule, it was estimating WEEKS to do it. Even with the HD connected right to the Time Capsule. It's like the WLAN wanted all traffic to go out then come back in before being written.
My solution in that case was to disconnect my laptop from the WLAN, with the drive hooked up to it via USB and then Cat5 to the Time Capsule and do a direct transfer like that. 2 hours instead of weeks.

Installing Boot Camp on a second internal disk

Ok, so I searched the forums for quite some time on this, but couldn't really find the information I was looking for. Really, I just want to share my experience of installing Windows XP 64bit on a second internal disk, operating with leopard 10.5.2 on an dual quad core Intel box:
The directions for boot camp are specific to installing windows on a partition from your OS X drive and can be a bit confusing for people wanting to install on a secondary internal disk. When you first run boot camp, you are presented with 2 options, create or remove a windows partition or start the windows installer. If you have a partition already formatted for windows, use the second option. In my case, I wanted to create an entirely new windows partition.
You are then presented with the option to choose which drive you want to partition. I selected my second internal disk in bay 2, enabling the "erase disk and create a single partition for windows" option. Do not be fooled. This does not format the disk, it only makes a partition on the disk which you will then later format in the windows set-up. Clicked continue with the windows XP disk in the dvd drive, and the system will then make the partition and restart the computer into the ugly windows setup blue dialog screen.
Here's where I was confused. After loading some drivers, you are then presented with the option to format disks... If you were making a second partition on a pre-installed OS X disk, Boot Camp cleverly makes a title on that partition, telling you which is the correct disk to format <BOOTCAMP>. In my case, I was presented with three options. Disk 1 (J:), which had 300 gb, and disk two, which had two partitions in it already, one at 200mb (D:) and one at 280gb (C:).
DO NOT PICK YOUR OS X DRIVE!!! It will erase your entire mac system. The problem is, if your drives are exactly the same size, there is really NO WAY to tell the difference between the two in the windows setup except for some subtle hints. I unfortunately picked the wrong disk, and erased my machine into the ether.
However, after I reinstalled my OS X drive and tried the XP install again, I found there were clues as to which drive to format. Apparently, windows likes to be installed on drive C:. My background is with Mac, so I didn't catch that hint the first time around. Also, if I paid careful attention to the sizes of my drives, instead of guestimating they were both the same (the mac is just a bit larger than the second internal), I could have solved the puzzle long before I began banging my head on the desk.
Formating the drive is straight forward, but takes about 2 hours to do. Windows goes through it's setup, and before you know it, you have a quasi-functioning windows system on your mac. The final step is to reboot, hold down option, click the windows HD, have your OS X install disc 1 in the drive, then install the rest of the mac-windows driver (automatically does this for you).
Boom. You're done.
P.S. I was told by a apple rep that boot camp does not work with a 64 bit install of XP. It worked for me... eventually!
Hope this helped

I understand that you were able to load windows on another internal disk beside the one where OSX resides. In my case I have two drives that are stripped (software raid). Will I be able use bootcamp with windows installed on a third internal disk dedicated to windows?
Thanks...Chris

Trying to optimize eSATA and internal disk configurations

I'm trying to optimize the HD setup on my dual 2.5GHz G5 with 4.5GB RAM
major considerations.
- massive itunes library (260GB), and big iphoto lib (25GB) as well
- lots of video editing in Final Cut with large capture files and many video exports
- regular podcasting and other media creation with all my music and photos
- need for regular COMPLETE backups
- speed
Here's the current setup. I have six disks as part of the system
1. internal 160GB disk (maps simply to a MACHD volume)
2. internal 250GB disk (maps simply to a COMMONS volume for Democracy player files, torrent downloads etc)
then on my 4-port eSATA controller card
4x 500GB SATA drives from Western Digital for a total of 2TB eSATA disk space
they are in 2 eSATA enclosures from FirmTek
I'm managing the disks with SoftRAID
Before I get into the problem, how would YOU use this incredible amount of disk space, considering the goals I have? (video, media storage, backup).
Now, The problem
I've been disappointed with the speed of my system and suspect its my HD configuration. I have enough RAM right!?
I've got some raid stripes going on
2 of the 500GB disks (disk2 and disk3) support two "active" volumes
a) a striped ATLAS volume of 800GB (holds itunes, documents, iphoto, basically all media files)
b) a striped VIDEO SCRATCH volumn of 200GB (for working files in FCP, imovie, etc)
the other 2 of the 500GB disks (disk0 and disk1) support two "clone" volumes
a) a mirror MACHDCLONE volume on both disk0 and disk1 (to protect the system drive. I run Super Duper 3x per week)
b) a striped ATLAS_CLONE volume to backup the active ATLAS volume
the COMMONS volume is not backed up in any way. figure i can live without my Democracy files and torrents, etc.
My ideas:
based on my performance observations, my setup above is just wrong, and I don't know where to turn for the best advice. Google is very poor at dealing with such complexity in search results. There are some video advice sites, but they only cover part of my problems. I have a few theories of how I should be using these drives
1. use the eSATA drives strictly for performance benefits, not for backup. consider a USB2.0 drive for backups and use Mozy for offsite backup
2. simplify the disk allocation. No single disk should support more than one volume
3. the video scratch SHOULD be striped in order to benefit from speed. and should be on its own physical disk(s) separate from ANY other function
So I'm thinking
a) stripe two of the eSATAs into a single 1 TB array for my media or ATLAS volume
- this solves me running out of space on the volume (getting closer with the iTunes video downloads every day)
- it's also just physically easier to deal with. I can SEE what drives make up ATLAS alone
- will be easier for me to eventually replace the G5 with an MBP running its own eSATA pc card with easy access to the same ATLAS volume
this still leaves two 500GB eSATA disks around
b1) I could extend the ATLAS volume to an array including a 3rd eSATA disk for a 1.5TB volume. this would allow me to bring COMMONS files onto ATLAS
b2) the remaining 500GB eSATA disk can be video scratch
OR
c1) dedicate 1 500GB disk to VIDEO SCRATCH
and
c2) partition the other 500GB disk as a clone of both COMMONS and the internal System drive
see how CONFUSING THIS IS ?
there are too many permutations of things.
I know I like keeping the system drive simple and internal. Ideally, the second internal disk would mirror this volume, but they do not match in size or brand
part of me wants to stripe all FOUR eSATA drives into a blazing 2TB masterpiece, but it seems like a bad idea to put VIDEO SCRATCH on the same array as ATLAS
Other questions:
should the itunes library get it's own disk altogether? is striping of benefit here?
are there some sites that explain HD management well?
PowerMac G5 2.5GHz 4.5GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.9) also own a blacbook

Thanks so much for that awesome feedback.
A few points.
I have the dual processor G5, not the quad core. Purchased in Jan 2005.
My RAM pageouts are fine (didn't know what that was until you mentioned it)
Love the idea of moving COMMONS "outside the box"
I used to have my system volume boot from an external RAID, but didn't notice a big improvement, and it meant my G5 would ONLY boot if the eSATAs were powered up. I just didn't like that feel. I want the tower to work in a self-contained fashion, even if I don't have access to all media. I want access to the OS and apps.
I'm unlikely to buy more SATA controllers and enclosers or too many new disks. I'm on a serious budget and want to work with as much of what I have as possible. That said, i just checked out the Drobo and am drooling. I'll wait to see how well it performs for data access (and video) and not just storage.
It sounds dreamy to stripe all four of the eSATAs into a 1.8TB storage megaplex. I imagine they would scream in an ATLAS_BADASS volume, but then I've got nothing left for VIDEO SCRATCH used to capture and render.
The VIDEO_SCRATCH doesn't need to be large, and I think that's where I'm having a conflict. My eSATA drives are way too big to use even ONE as a video scratch, much less striping two of those bad boys just for that purpose
Purchasing a 10K drive for video scratch (or system volume) is not really in the cards yet.
So here's where I sit now:
1. My Media Storage
++ the 4 eSATA drives (2.0TB raw)
I go with the badass steroid injected ATLAS volume striped across all four.
this is my media array and holds all the contents of ATLAS and COMMONS (iTunes, iPhoto, Documents, FCP training videos, ripped DVDs, the works)
2. My System Volume
++ the 250GB internal SATA
move COMMONS out
migrate system volume to this disk
better storage-to-free space ratio
3. My Scratch Disk
a) use the now-spare 160GB internal Maxtor (probably weak and slow)
b) get an external FW800 RAID disk from OWC
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/hard-drives/EliteAL/StripedRAID
I'd go with the 160GB or 320GB
4. Backup Plan - level 1 - local
++ use my spare external Maxtor 250GB FW drive
clone the system volume regularly
++ get an external FW drive (like the 1TB My Book Premium II from WD)
clone ATLAS_BADASS regularly
the WD is just $400
i know it's capacity is lower than my super striped RAID, but i don't know of any cheap way to clone ATLAS_BADASS to a 1.5TB drive
5. Backup Plan - level 2 - remote
pay for a Mozy storage account which has unlimited capacity
upload system and ATLAS_BADASS every few weeks
any new thoughts? and thanks again!

Will a 3" disk (containing an antenna driver) work in a MacBook internal disk drive?

Will a 3" disk (containing an antenna driver) work in a MacBook internal disk drive?

Slot loading machines can only handle 4.72" (120mm) standard CD disks. Any other size will simply get stuck in the drive and be really hard to get out. Your best bet is to find someone with a tray loading CD drive and have them copy the driver over to a USB thumb drive or a standard size CD.

External USB hard disks recognized as internal disks by Win7 x64

Hello,
When I connect any of 3 different My Passport external disks to my laptop, they are shown as internal disks.
I can still disconnect them using usb icon in system tray.
It seems to me windows started to behave this way when I connected usb disk while it was still starting.
Is there a way to make the system show external disks as such again?
Robert M. Glaz

Hi,
In fact, this is controlled by the device itself. An RMB set to zero indicates that the device is not a removable media device. An RMB of one indicates that the device is a removable media device. Drivers obtain this information by using the StorageDeviceProperty
request. Yes, this information is stored in storage device descriptor.
STORAGE_DEVICE_DESCRIPTOR
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/ff566971(VS.85).aspx
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Alex Zhao
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Copy iTunes library to another internal disk

G5 PPC 2.0 Ghz Dual OS 10.4.11
The boot drive has OS 10.4.11. On the 2nd internal disk, I have a partition with OS 10.4.11. Is it possible to copy the library to this partition on the 2nd disk?

It is not clear from your post whether you have tried telling iTunes to use the Library on the second drive? If not, you can do it this way:
Hold down the option key when clicking to open iTunes.
Continue holding the option key down until the "Choose iTunes Library" dialog box appears.
Click the button "Choose Library . . ."
Then navigate to the folder containing the music files, highlight it, and click the "Choose" button.

Internal Disk gone

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