Using Disks and Discs

Working with hard drives, CDs, DVDs, and other similar types of storage devices is quite similar under Mac OS X to what it was under Mac OS 9. The following bullets provide information about some useful disk-related tasks:

  • You can control whether mounted disk and volume icons are automatically shown on the desktop using the Finder Preferences window (choose Finder, Preferences). Check the "Show these items on the Desktop" check boxes to show icons on the desktop or uncheck them to keep those icons from appearing on the desktop. (If you chose not to have disk icons mounted on the desktop, you can access the mounted disks and volumes using the Computer directory.)

  • You can eject removable disks by dragging them to the Trash, or by selecting them and choosing File, Eject, pressing graphics/symbol.gif+E, using the contextual menu Eject command, or by using the Eject icon that you can place on the Finder toolbar.

    TIP

    When you select a mounted volume (such as a CD), the Trash icon becomes an eject symbol to indicate that you are unmounting a volume rather than deleting it.


  • graphics/new10point2_icon.jpg To configure the action that happens when you insert CDs or DVDs, use the CDs & DVDs pane of the System Preferences utility. You can configure what happens when you insert blank media or when you insert "full" discs. When you configure what happens when you insert "full" discs, your options are to have a selected application open (such as DVD Player when you insert a video DVD), to cause an AppleScript to run, or to do nothing (which Mac OS X calls Ignore).

  • To erase a disk under Mac OS X, you use the Disk Utility application (Applications/Utilities). Open the application, select the disk you want to erase, click the Erase tab, choose the format on the Volume Format pop-up menu, enter the volume name, and click Erase.

  • Disk Images are a file type that mimics the behavior of a disk. When you open a disk image, it acts just as if it were a real disk. Disk images are most commonly used to distribute applications. Disk images are mounted using the Disk Copy application (Applications/Utilities). When a disk image is mounted, you can open it as you would a physical disk, eject it, and so on.

To learn how to configure the action when you insert blank media, see Chapter 23, "Understanding and Using Data Storage Devices," p. 687.

To learn how to use the Disk Utility to format and partition a disk, see "Initializing and Partitioning a Hard Drive," p. 692.

To learn more about disk images, see "Installing Mac OS X Applications," p. 123.



Special Edition Using Mac OS X v10. 2
Special Edition Using Mac OS X v10.2
ISBN: 0789729040
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 260
Authors: Brad Miser

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