Dear Al, Thank you for your help. I have my problem partition and my iPhoto library back but not by the way that any of us expected. I had already budgeted to buy DiskWarrior. But in the meanwhile a new upgrade for Safari for Pnther was released so I installed it. It seems optimising the internal drive for the install solved the problem because the missing partition reappeared, and all was back to normal. It seemed unbelievable, but then many things with a computer fit that bill. Thank you, Tony http://www.tonyjohansen.com A Life Of Art