How do I stop my hard disk icon from wandering?

I am an experienced Mac user but really haven't learned some basic stuff. I need to know about desktop icon management in Mac OS X. I am using OS X.3 on my desktop and OS X.4 on my laptop. How can I keep my harddrive icon in one spot I designate? Every time I shut down and start up again, the icon is in a different place. I like it in the upper right hand corner (I'm old-fashioned, I know). I'm sure there has to be a way, but I haven't found it yet.

Dave's Answer:

I know exactly what you're talking about as I see this on my Mac too, especially my laptop. There are only two ways I know of to fix this problem and they both involve the view preferences you have configured in the Mac Finder.

You need to either choose "Snap to Grid" (which ensures icons line up both horizontally and vertically, as if they were in a grid) or "View by Name" (etc) and hope for the best when it sorts everything on your Desktop by whatever criterion you've specified.

To change these settings, get to the desktop (so it says "Finder" on the top left of the menubar), then choose "Show View Options" from the "View" menu:

Mac OS X : Finder Preferences : View Options

That’s all there is to it! Good luck.

Categorized: Mac OS X Help (Article 6970, Written by Dave Taylor)
Tagged: desktop organization, finder, mac os x
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