Nicole writes: I just got a new MacBook Air and really like it; however, the Macintosh HD icon is missing from the desktop. How do I set that up?
The Power Macintosh G3 was originally intended to be a midrange series, between the low-end Performa/LC models and the six-PCI slot Power Macintosh 9600. It is the earliest Old World ROM Macintosh model officially able to boot into Mac OS X, and one of only two Old World ROM models able to boot into Mac OS X, the other model being the early. Mac's hard drive, also know as Macintosh HD, is the primary storage facility or database for keeping system and data for Mac users. And macOS or Mac OS X has been committed to providing the best protection of Mac hard drive to avoid data loss for many years.
Hi Nicole! Congrats on the new Mac, but yes, I can see how it might be a bit odd that there’s no hard drive icon sitting on your desktop.
Now, one way to deal with a missing Macintosh HD icon is to simply select New Finder Window from the Finder’s File menu at the top of the screen; doing so will open a new window that’ll allow you to dig into any volume accessible from your Mac, including your hard drive.
No “Macintosh HD” icon on your Mac desktop? Make sure the “Hard disks” box is checked in the Finder Preferences window.
That said, I totally get why you’d want the missing Macintosh HD icon back on your desktop. Here’s how to do it.
- Click the Finder’s File menu at the top of the screen (just click the bare desktop if you don’t see the word “Finder” next to the Apple menu), then select Finder Preferences and click the General tab.
- You should now see a list of all the items that will show up on your desktop. Go ahead and check the box next to “Hard disks.”
Now, go back and check your desktop. You should see the missing Macintosh HD icon sitting right there, right where it should be.
Hope that helps, Nicole. Still have questions? Let me know!
Bonus tip
Click the Sidebar tab in the Finder Preferences window to pick and choose which items appear in the sidebar of any Finder window. Among the choices: “All My Files,” Applications, your hard drives, and Downloads.
How To Find Macintosh Hd On Macbook Air
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Why Can't You Play 4K Video Smoothly on Mac?
We all know that hardware configuration matters a lot for 4K video playback on Mac. Firstly, except the new 4K Retina 21.5-inch iMac and the 5K Retina 27 inch iMac, no Mac can play 4K 2160p videos without the help of 4K external displays using either the built-in HDMI port and/or using Mini DisplayPort adapters via Thunderbolt. But it doesn't mean that you definitely can watch Ultra High-definition videos with the 4K external displays. Other hardware and video itself are also critical. Now get in back to the point. Check the possible reasons of 4K video playback failure.
Macbook Air How To Guide
1. CPU doesn't accelerate HEVC codec. An increasing number of people encode 4K videos with HEVC codec for saving up to 50% storage space compared to H.264. But you know what? HEVC is a hard codec to decode and only the new CPUs are acclerated for it. Even if you've updated to the HEVC compatible High Sierra, the 4K video won't be played smoothly.
2. High CPU usage on Mac. If the CPU usage is too high, you will fail to play 4K video as well. For example, for the initial question, according to the publisher, when playing 1080p uses about 130% CPU usage, where these 4k h265 files use about 700% on a QuadCore. The GPU is not doing the work, the CPU is.
3. The 4K video itself. I find that 1 pass VBR 12Mbps good preset (medium setting) in Adobe ME is very good in general. Anything above that is just a waste of storage and space on your Macbook Pro/Air, Mac Pro. As you play the 4K video on IINA with this setting, the 4K video player only needs about 300% CPU to decode, other than the above mentioned 700%. And MPlayerX does much better job for this particular video, which plays 4K at 22-25FPS, but still not 30, not to mention the 60FPS 4K video recorded by iPhone X, iPhone 8/8 Plus.
4. Poor graphics card. Apple is not offering gaming machines, or even trying to. So the graphics card on Macbook Pro/Air, Mac Pro is relatively in low-end. While if you're into serious 3D rendering, CAD, you're probably using a workstation with better GPU, not a laptop. And surely there will be no problem for 4K HEVC video playback. So for the poor GPU, you can optimize it slightly by settings, or purchase an advanced one. Following is quick rundown of well-known hardware that includes dedicated HEVC decoding blocks, which definitely support efficient HEVC playback:
- Intel 6th-generation ‘Skylake’ Core processors or newer
- AMD 6th-generation ‘Carizzo’ APUs or newer
- AMD ‘Fiji’ GPUs (Radeon R9 Fury/Fury X/Nano) or newer
- Nvidia GM206 GPUs (GeForce GTX 960/950) or newer
- Other Nvidia GeForce GTX 900 series GPUs have partial HEVC hardware decoding support
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 805/615/410/208 SoCs or newer. Support ranges from 720p decoding on low-end parts to 4K playback on high-end parts.
- Nvidia Tegra X1 SoCs or newer
- Samsung Exynos 5 Octa 5430 SoCs or newer
- Apple A8 SoCs or newer
- Some MediaTek SoCs from mid-2014 onwards