Eject or Unmount Disks


When you insert a CD or DVD, or connect to an external hard disk or removable media device like a Zip drive, these items appear on the Desktop and in the top section of the Finder sidebar. When you connect to another computer on a network, the volumes you mount, or connect to, appear on the Desktop as well. (See Chapter 4 for more on the Finder preferences, which enable you to select which items to display on the Desktop.) Figure 5-17 shows some of the different volumes you can mount on your Mac.

click to expand
Figure 5-17: Different types of volumes mounted on the Desktop: From left to right: an internal hard disk, an external FireWire hard disk, a network volume, a Zip cartridge, and an audio CD.

These same volumes display in the top part of the Finder sidebar, according to your choices in the Finder preferences (see Chapter 4).

When you are finished working with a CD, DVD, or other volume, you must eject it. There are several ways to do this. The easiest is to click the eject button next to the volume in the Finder window sidebar as shown in the image to the left.

Another way to do this, if you don’t have these volumes displayed in your Finder window sidebar, is to click the volume’s icon on the Desktop to select it, and then select File | Eject or press z-E. If you want to eject a disc in your Mac’s internal CD-ROM or DVD drive, you can press the F12 key. When you do this, an eject symbol appears on your screen and the disc ejects.

Another way to eject volumes is to use the contextual menu: hold down the CONTROL key and click the volume to display this menu; then select Eject. Or press your right button and click the item if you have a multibutton mouse.

Finally, you can eject any volume by dragging its icon to the Trash. While this may seem strange, the Mac has worked this way for many years. As you do this, the Trash icon changes to an eject symbol and shows a label saying “Eject” (for CDs, removable media, and so on) or “Disconnect” (for network volumes).

Caution

You should always eject or unmount external volumes when you are finished working with them. Some volumes, such as external hard drives, may become damaged if you turn them off or unplug them while they are mounted. Don’t worry, though, if you shut down your Mac; the shutdown routine correctly unmounts and ejects all mounted volumes. And putting your Mac to sleep is fine as well; your volumes will remain mounted when you wake up your Mac.




How to Do Everything with Mac OS X Panther
How to Do Everything with Mac OS X Panther
ISBN: 007225355X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 171

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net