Main boot drive completely disappeared from Finder

Wow. This is an odd one indeed. My main boot drive is called "Leopard." I have a few other HDs, Backup, WinXP, and so on. One day, I noticed that "Leopard" was missing from the sidebar in Finder! Turns out, if I click on the sidebar icon for my whole Mac, it shows all the hard drives in the Finder window, EXCEPT "Leopard"! There's no way to get to it other than double clicking "Leopard" in the Path Bar at the bottom of a Finder window.
Anyone know how to fix this?

Can't use the desktop icon because it doesn't show up there, no matter what.
You didn't say that originally, so that's why I mentioned it. The sidebar comment was to let you know I have little to no knowledge of it. In my case, I find it intrusive, since I can't close it up like I could in Tiger.
Reading the other posts, I see you've fixed the issue. Good computing.

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Is it possible to use External HD as main boot drive? (Help!)

Hi all
I am about to buy a Seagate FreeAgent Pro (link: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/478636-REG/SeagateST305004FPA1E3_RK_FreeAgent_Pro_500GB_eSATA.html) with 500Gb and FW400/USB2.0/eSATA. I have a Mac Mini, and its internal HD is too small for me (80Gb total for about 70Gb of data).
What I'd like to do is install OS X on the External HD and use it as my main boot drive, and perhaps the Mini's internal HD for data backup. Would that be possible/legal (I only have the install discs that came with it - my first Mac :D)? If it is complicated, could you guys explain me how to do it?
I'd also like to know whether the performance would be better or worse. The Mini's got a 5400 RPM drive, and the external is 7200 RPM and would be connected through FW400 (plus a lot of free space for now).
One last question: if it is indeed possible/legal to use the External HD as my main boot drive, would it be possible to install and boot Windows on the external HD using Boot Camp or Parallels?
Cheers
Daniel
Mac Mini 1.83 GHz Core Duo 1 GB Ram 80 GB HDD Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Performance will be worse because FW400 is considerably slower than the internal bus. For startup I would continue using the internal drive. You can use the external drive for data storage as well as off-loading any music, picture, and movie files to free up space on the internal drive. You can also partition a chunk of the external drive (80 GBs) to use as a backup partition for the internal hard drive. You can clone your internal drive to the external (partition) which will give you a bootable backup. Here's how:
How to Clone Using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the backup or destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (journaled, if available) and click on the Erase button. This step can be skipped if the destination has already been freshly erased.
4. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
5. Select the backup or destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the startup or source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
8. Select the destination drive on the Desktop and press COMMAND-I to open the Get Info window. At the bottom in the Ownership and Permissions section be sure the box labeled "Ignore Permissions on this Volume" is unchecked. Verify the settings for Ownership and Permissions as follows: Owner=system with read/write; Group=admin with read/write; Other with read-only. If they are not correct then reset them.

WD MyBook World Edition disappeared from Finder

I have had a Western Digital My Book World Edtition network drive connected for several years that worked without issue. It recently disappeared from Finder and I cannot figure out how to restore access. I have seen numerous posts on this but no definitive corrective actions. I think it must be a simple fix. I do not use Time Machine.

verify on another Mac.
Dont buy WD consumer HD anymore, rather Hitachi or Toshiba.
Likely a dead SATA card, a very common issue, see here:
Your dead external hard drive is likely fine! Great hope for your 'faulty' external HD

How To Make Mac Partition Main Boot Drive

Hi. Whenever I boot my computer, it always boots into XP when you don't press option. What can I do so that the Mac partition is the main boot drive? Thanks.

Hi,
while in OSX open System Preference from the Apple Top Menu, then open Startup Volume and set your OSX volume as the default startup volume.
Do the needed restart and voila
regards
Stefan

HT1451 Music has completely disappeared from ITunes library! Please Help!!

Music has completely disappeared from ITunes library! Please Help!!
Hours and Hours of renaming, adding cover photos and so on have been for nothing. Itunes cannot find the files since they're not in the library at all!
I still have the music on my computer but don't want to add it as it is, as I have spent a lot of time "fixing" it! PLEASE HELP!

Did you use spotlight to search? (I'm assuming you have a Mac as given above despite this thread being in the Windows forum). How long have you used iTunes on this computer? Is there a backup to your library, perhaps an only copy of it on a machine you've "retired". Is the media present in the media folder? (Yes, you've answered that earlier.) If so then the media files should have absorbed all the tag changes that you made and reimporting the media into a new library might not be a complete disaster, though playlists, playcounts, ratings etc. would be irretrievably lost.
tt2

Hello. I have problem here can someone plz help. I have usb of 32 gb but i have problem with it while i was trying to partition of it and it fails and my usb disappear from finder and desktop i have tried every possible thing but nothing works .

Hello. I have problem here can someone plz help. I have usb of 32 gb but i have problem with it while i was trying to partition of it and it fails and my usb disappear from finder and desktop i have tried every possible thing but nothing works .

Yea i tried in disk utility and its got faiiled and the partitation has deleted and when i tried to replug the usb msg show up by saying usb not compaitnle. With this mac and take me to disk utility and thanks for replying

Seagate USB drive always disappearing from desktop

I have a 2TB Seagate USB 3 drive, which is "backwards compatible" with USB 2.0.
I put that in quotes because this drive constantly disappears from my desktop. I simply
unplug the USB cable and plug it back in, and voila, there it is. But it makes me nervous
(and ticks me off!) that it never 'stays put'. Nervous, because I have been using this drive as my
Tima Machine drive. I just did a successful restore yesterday, so I know it's working properly, but
I do have to manually start my backups. I constantly get the message "backup drive not present".
So scheduled backups are sketchy to say the least. I know what you'll say - get a different drive for
use with Time Machine. A good idea I'm sure. But can anyone tell me why this drive won't remain on
my desktop? Is it a USB 3 issue?
Thanks

There are many reports in these forums of problems using Seagate GoFlex drives with Time Machine. I wouldn't trust one, myself.

Music completely disappeared from my iPhone 4S... Four Times!!!

I own an iPhone 4S. Since I've upgraded to iOS 8, the music player function has been buggy. I am also a subscriber of iTunes Match.
For the fourth time today, and in 3 months, ALL the music that I have downloaded from iTunes Match have completely disappeared from my iPhone. It's EXTREMELY frustrating to have to re-download my songs and albums again and again. Even that is an issue in itself. The downloads are buggy as well as the songs don't download well.
Does any know how I can avoid my songs from being auto-wiped out from my iPhone please? And what is wrong???

Try this support document. iTunes Match on iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support at the bottom of the page there are several more links, and one is for troubleshooting. I do not use Match, so I cannot tell you anything else about how it works, etc., but the troubleshooting link should help.

Network Drives Disappear from Finder Intermittently

I'm periodically having problems with my Mac recognizing an Iomega Home Media Network Drive. Everything's connected together using an Airport Extreme. Usually the drive will show up under the "Shared" category in the Finder, and I can connect and use it normally.
Every once and awhile, it disappears from that list. I can still connect manually using Go->Connect to Server, but the Finder doesn't pick it up on its own. After a few days or weeks, it'll just show up in the shared list again. No amount of restarting/repairing permissions will fix it. For example, my drive has been missing for about a week now, and after doing nothing special it decided to show back up while I was typing this post.
I've seen this topic come up periodically on the boards, but I couldn't find anything recent or with a solution. Has anyone encountered or come up with a fix for this?
Thanks,
-Jason

I have an Iomega drive that is also fidgety on the network, either in Leopard (when problem arose) or SL (when I found my solution). I actually had to view my drive under the sidebar path ComputerName> Network> AirPortEx> Iomega Drive because I kept getting errors when I tried to view in column view from the shared section despite having the drive set to ignore permissions.
Firstly, this is what I call a workaround, not a fix, as recognition of the drive doesn't work seamlessly in Finder as advertised, but required these extra steps in order for me to always see the drive in the sidebar. Secondly, it may not be absolutely necessary to do all these things, and I am assuming you have the authority on your network to do all these things, but here's what I've done to get my satisfaction:
1. Make sure you set servers to mount on the desktop in Finder prefs and that connected servers and bonjour computers are set up to show in the sidebar
2. Use connect to server if you have to and mount the drive to your desktop
3. Once the drive is on your desktop, open system prefs and go to your login items under Accounts & Authenticate by clicking the lock on the lower left and entering your password
4. Drag the network drive into your login items (and dock, sidebar, or window toolbar if desired)
5. Restart
This may not be the fix you hoped for. You do seem to have to keep the drive mounted, etc. But I do always see it in my sidebar under sharing now, and have no problems viewing anything on it from wherever in the Finder I try to access it (whether from the sidebar in the shared section or under the network area of my computer, in the dock, or from the toolbar). At the very least you never have to Connect to Server again. Hit the drive icon in the dock and it will connect if you get disconnected.
FYI: Make sure you always choose the "ignore" button when/if alerts pop up to tell you that you have been disconnected from the drive because you'll have to remount otherwise. These alerts occur to me only when waking my MBP from sleep. I wait 2-3 seconds, and click on the icon of my Iomega drive that I have in my sidebar, toolbar, or dock and it shows contents just fine, still connected after all.
Message was edited by: snowsister

All drives apart from boot drive completely wiped!! HELP!!

Just booted up my G4 1.25GHZ which has an internal drive and 2 firewire drives attached. All files on all the drives apart from the boot drive have dissapeared.
The drives are empty1 That's 600GB of data that's just vanished. The only thing I can think of is I'm using Personal Backup from Intego for backing up data mostly in the background and it seemed to be taking ages to repair permissions yesterday. But it wasn't backing up on all the drives.
I'm trying Techtool pro to recover the data but I need to know what happend...
Help if you can, thanks.

Have you tried the drives on another computer to see if the files are showing up? This might be a problem with the FireWire jacks or OS X not recognizing it anymore, it happened to me once, I had to reinstall Panther at the time and it was a bad memory chip that caused OS X to behave improperly.
If the drives work on other systems, you should try reinstalling OS X and if it still does not work, try the Hardware Test that came with your computer.

Firewire HD disappeared from finder

Hello-
I have a Seagate FW harddrive attached to my Mac Pro. It's icon recently disappeared from my desktop and finder. It still shows up in disk utility though. I have tried ejecting it and unplugging it and letting it sit. Still no luck. My finder preferences are set to show HD's (my main HD shows up fine). Those are the 2 common fixes I've read about here...anyone have any ideas?
thanks!
matt

Almost all vendor style FW cases come as FAT32, and I doubt they use Oxford 911+ FireWire bridge.
There are other reports of FW drives failing to show that once did. WD MyBook Pro a couple times.
Using a PCIe FireWire controller may help, but at least some required replacement from Apple.
It use to be pretty much required after the 10.3.0 problem with FW drives to never run an OS update with a FW drive connected, even like recent Security Update.
In any event, anytime you suspect hardware issue of any kind it is probably prudent to run Apple Hardware Test; check System Profile: Firewire (so ports and bus show up?) as first step.
SMC Reset would also be a good idea. With LaCie they often recommended unplugging power and every cable going into and from the Mac for 15 minutes to discharge or bleed any current.
Plugging equipment into UPS might not solve this issue, but can't hurt and may prevent problems.
Safe Mode: hold down shift key (mentioned a couple times in Apple.com/support
Single User Mode: command + s
Verbose Mode: command + v
Repairing a FW drive in SUM would be more challenge than it is worth. Usually only the boot drive gets repaired or mounted.
FW PCIe: Aaxeon is one of your best bets. Can run $109 for FW800.

External Airport Extreme HD disappeared from Finder

Hi everyone,
My external HD connected to the Airport Extreme antenna has disappeared from the Finder. I have been using it yesterday night and this morning was not there anymore. In the meantime none has touched my Mac.
I have rebooted the Airport Extreme via Utility Airport with no success.
Can anyone help me, please?
Thanks,
Francesco.

FBF-CH wrote:
My external HD connected to the Airport Extreme antenna has disappeared from the Finder.
If a network drive disappears, you'll have to mount it again by hand. Do you see your AirPort Extreme in the "sidebar" of a Finder window? If so, select that to start the mount process.

Ipod wont stay connected and icon disappears from finder

I have a new 80g video ipod, have had it for about three weeks. Up until today all was fine, but now it won't stay connected to itunes after updating files. It connects, shows up on the desk top for a few seconds, updates any new files and then just drops out. It keeps the do not disconnect screen for a few seconds, then the red warning logo disappears and after that i can not do anything with the ipod in itunes. The ipod music list is greyed out and I can't add any new photos or change anything. The only thing I have done differently since it was last working ok was I connected my camera using the camera connector and uploaded some pictures from that.
I have done a reset and now a restore but that hasn't helped.
is the problem with the ipod or itunes? What can I do?

Sorry, this may be a case of "always read the manual first"!
I think that what I thought was a fault with the ipod was in fact due to the default preference for auto syncing being enabled. As I had my previous ipod set to manual update I was used to being able to make changes to the ipods lists whilst connected, but as my new ipod is still set to automatically sync I now realise that this is why the ipods list was greyed out. In this mode it appears that it is usual that as soon as you connect, itunes updates any changes and then disconnects and the red "do not disconnect" screen on the ipod goes. If there were no new additions or changes to playlists made since the last time you connected, the sync will only take a few seconds and then the ipod screen goes back to the menu list. Also, because in auto sync the ipod will be updated with a copy of your itunes contents, the ipod's list is greyed out due to the fact that you are not able to make changes independently from your itunes list. (i.e. you have to make the changes in itunes in order for these to be replicated on the ipod).
In order to keep connected and be able to alter things on the ipod list you have to have the preference set to manually update. Then the ipods contents are not greyed out and you can add, delete and change playlists without doing this in your main itunes on the computer.
So I think I have answered my own question, unless I am still misunderstanding something here, and the moral is, download and read the manual properly before worrying that there is something wrong with the machine!
I still think its a bit weird that the ipod icon disappears from he desktop though as I thought it would be at least recognised as being attached even if not in disc mode. Should it still show in the finder anyway?

Music completely disappeared from itunes and computer

I got on my iTunes today and my music all said that the location could not be found. I don't know how or why, for I haven't changed anything or moved my music folder around. Out of over 2000 songs, only 800 remain. But all my folders are still there. All the artist folders in my iTunes folder are all there...but I have no idea where the music went. I did a search and the songs didn't come up. WHY did my music disappear from iTunes and WHY only some of them?! I'd love to say I have them saved on my iPod but my iPod is only 4 gigs and I had over 12 gigs of music so obviously I can't recover all of them. Someone help me find my music!!!

Nobody likes replying to posts like this - if you've searched all your hard drives and the music files are gone, then they're gone.
I assume you looked in the Recycle Bin and did a Win Explorer search instead of just looking in the known folders?
Who knows why this happened! Disasters like this usually convince folks to make regular backups.

External Hard Drive Suddenly Disappeared From List

Hi guys. About a week ago, a weird msg started popping up about my external (F:) hard drive, after which nothing inside of it would show up anymore.
If I clicked on a folder, there'd be nothing in it. Then if I unplugged, and re-plugged, it would all be back like nothing happened.
Yesterday, the D: drive disappeared from the population list in My Computer altogether, and no matter what I do it doesn't return. I've only tried plugging into different ports and restarting, but that's all I know how to do. I was going to system restore and
see if that helped, but this message came up on the screen:
"Changes made to drive(s) D: after this point cannot be reversed because the drive was either excluded from system restore monitoring, or was turned off or removed"
I have no idea what to do. Literally everything is on that drive. Any suggestions? And thanks in advance for any help, it'd be appreciated.

Just tried it on another computer and the drive didn't show up there either.
Its a Seagate FreeAgent Desktop harddrive.
What can I do?

Main boot drive completely disappeared from Finder

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