Why are my hard drive icons moving upon restart?

July 12, 2005 6:08 AM

whenever I restart my Mac G5 (10.4.x), my hard drive icons (two external, the main hard drive, and a secondary internal) are moved to the upper right hand side of my screen, and usually partially obscured by the Dock (which I pin on the right side.) I hate this. All the other icons on the desktop (folders, aliases, etc.) never move after a restart (or re-launch of the Finder), just the drive icons. Is there any way to avoid this?
posted by thewiseacre to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

This happens because the icons aren't real files or aliases in the Desktop folder. This is easily fixed:

- Select the hard disks and choose "Make Alias" from the File menu
- Then in Finder > Preferences > Show on Desktop, deselect "Hard Disks"

The original icons will disappear. Rename the aliases and put them were you want them.
posted by cillit bang at 6:28 AM on July 12, 2005

Oh and external hard disks come under "CDs, DVDs and iPods", which you also need to deselect to get rid of the original icons.
posted by cillit bang at 6:29 AM on July 12, 2005

Icon positions are stored in a file called .DS_Store — if you open Terminal and type in ls -al you'll notice there's a .DS_Store file in nearly each folder.

In your case, the file is ~/Desktop/.DS_Store — i.e. positions of Desktop icons are in the Desktop's DS_Store.

I don't know what parts of the binary file can be edited, but you might be able to backup the file and then cp (copy) the file back to the Desktop folder on a post-login (login-hook) script, bypassing the presentation of some icons in a new location.
posted by Rothko at 6:30 AM on July 12, 2005

A more drastic approach- I stopped keeping drive icons on the Desktop when I moved to OS X. Just use the Finder sidebar. (Finder -> Preferences -> Sidebar).

The Finder window, not the desktop, should be your primary access to navigating your filesystem, IMO. Treat the Desktop like a "waystation" for documents and whatnot until you file them away or throw them out- it's just like another folder. Your Desktop will invariably become more and more cluttered, but the Finder sidebar is always exactly the same.

I also keep my Applications folder on my Dock, so that I have easy, instant access to my apps with a right-click.
posted by mkultra at 6:52 AM on July 12, 2005