Chris Alaimo wrote:
I know if I ask this in a mac newsgroup I'll get flamed for using
such an old system. Using MacOS 7.1, I put a floppy disk into the drive and
dragged the contents of the disk onto the desktop. When I eject the disk,
the stuff disappears. Did it even actually copy the contents of the disk
onto the hard drive, or are they just shortcuts. I want to permanently copy
the files onto my desktop and have them visible no matter what disk if any
is in the drive. I;m trying to use this Mac to make Apple ][ disks, so it's
kind of Apple
][ related. Thanks.
What happened isn't too obvious because it involves invisible folders. When you move a file from a floppy or hard drive onto the desktop all you're doing is moving it to an invisible folder called "Desktop Folder" . So of course when you remove the disk, you're removing that invisible folder. If you want to copy the contents of a disk to a hard drive either just drag the floppies icon onto the HDs icon or open the floppy and drag the contents onto the HD icon(this second method doesn't copy any of the floppies files that are on the desktop since you can't select an invisible folder) If you want the file on the desktop first copy it to the computers HD then move the file from the computers HD onto the desktop. For some programs this isn't a good idea. In those cases a better choice wouldbe to make an alias of the application and place that alias on the desktop. To make an alias highlight the app and go to File -> Make Alias.
Wayne