portable usb drives and finder???

[edgedemon]

Ok
So I have this brand new shiny mac book pro and OSX is going to take a bit of getting used to..

Finder - wtf !!!!!
How does it work?

When I plug a usb drive in, everything I have googled led me to believe it 'should' appear on my desktop as well as under devices in finder?
I don't get anything appear on my desktop, and it can take a few attempts before it appears on finder.
Also, why do I have google chrome, firefox and flash player appearing as devices in finder?
If I select any one of them - I get the picture asking for them to be dragged to the App folder, but I have already done that…
I understand that they are disk images, is that why they appear as devices?

Confused?

 

[PaulyD]

When I plug a usb drive in, everything I have googled led me to believe it 'should' appear on my desktop as well as under devices in finder?
I don't get anything appear on my desktop, and it can take a few attempts before it appears on finder.

Click on your desktop then click on Finder at the top then preferences. There should be an option there to show connected hard drives on the desktop, make sure that is ticked.

Unsure what you mean exactly by takes a few attempts in finder for it to appear? Can you elaborate?

Also, why do I have google chrome, firefox and flash player appearing as devices in finder?
If I select any one of them - I get the picture asking for them to be dragged to the App folder, but I have already done that…
I understand that they are disk images, is that why they appear as devices?

Confused?

Sounds like you still have the dmg file mounted. When you install software it mounts the dmg file as a drive then you can drag across the app to the applications file or the shortcut if it provides one (like you have seen).

Once you have done that though you need to unmount the dmg file. Simply drag it to the trash can or hit the eject button in finder and job done

 

[edgedemon]

Nice one, cheers

As for the finder issue - seems to be a bit hit and miss as to whether the usb drive appears under devices? Can take 3 or 4 tries, AFAIK, the drive is fine, but that is in windows - filesystem format maybe?