When a person downloads something you get the .dmg file on your desktop and the little drive for that package is right above it. Well my question is b4 I knew about ejecting the drive and then moving the .dmg file to the trash, I would move the .dmg file to the trash b4 i ejected the drive then on a restart I noticed that it would move the drive into the dock right next to the trash icon. I would try to move it out to the desktop and the second that I let the drive icon go it would go "POOF" oh yea and it had a question mark on it when it was in the dock. By not ejecting it first am I messing anything up or is it not getting properly removed then? I do it the right way now, as I said b4 this was all b4 I knew what I was doing. Thank you again for your help!!
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Just curious?!?!
- Thread starter SiNNeD
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
You question is a little hard to understand, but I'll try to answer. It shouldn't matter if you eject the disk before you delete the DMG file. You won't be able to empty the DMG from the trash unless it is ejected, but it can be in the trash with the image still mounted no problem. As for the drive moving into the dock right next to the trash can, are you sure you didn't drag it there by accident? There's no reason OS X would do that automatically except by way of a strange bug (which I've never encountered/heard about). The area to the right of the vertical separator in the Dock is for (shortcuts) to files, folders, network volumes, etc, as opposed to applications, which go on the left.
Does that help?
Does that help?
If you put a mounted DMG file in the trash, it doesn't hurt anything--it'll just refuse to actually delete it until it's unmounted. Since it automatically unmounts everything on a restart, when you restart, you were then able to empty the trash and "finish" deleting the DMG file. Certainly no harm done.
As for why something was showing up in your dock, I have no idea--sounds rather like you were adding the DMG file or the mounted drive image to the dock above the trash accidentally instead of actually deleting it, then after a restart when it was gone you'd get the question mark.
In that case, again, no harm at all--making it go "poof" is all that's necessary.
[edit: Yeargh! Beaten to the post while typing!]
As for why something was showing up in your dock, I have no idea--sounds rather like you were adding the DMG file or the mounted drive image to the dock above the trash accidentally instead of actually deleting it, then after a restart when it was gone you'd get the question mark.
In that case, again, no harm at all--making it go "poof" is all that's necessary.
[edit: Yeargh! Beaten to the post while typing!]
Makosuke said:
Yea!! Thats what happened. You said on a restart it will unmount the drive enabling you to delete the .dmg file from the trash. BUT I noticed that when I did the restart it put the unmounted drive right next to the trashcan icon. When I tried to move the unmounted drive back to the desktop just as soon as I let it go to drop it on the desktop it did a "poof" thing. When the unmounted drive was next the trash icon it had a shadowed question mark over the top of the drive icon. But all is well thats what I was looking for when you said the drive unmounts on a restart!! Thank you for everyones help. I just wanted to make sure that I was doing processes as I should be.
The behavior you're describing about the drive icon next to the trash with the question mark on it is EXACTLY what you would expect if you had drug the mounted drive icon to the Dock. Once it was "gone" the question mark appears, and as with everything in the Dock, dragging it off removes it with a poof--that is standard behavior for everything. You can't drag "from the dock to somewhere else"--it's not designed that way.
As for why it was appearing there, I have absolutely no idea--like mduser63 said, I've NEVER seen that bug before, nor even heard of it.
As for why it was appearing there, I have absolutely no idea--like mduser63 said, I've NEVER seen that bug before, nor even heard of it.
iBoy111 said:
If you copied the application file from the disk image to your applications folder, you can then eject the disk image and erase it with no problems. The difficulty that some new users have is to run the application from within the disk image. This is akin to running an application from a CD or DVD, rather than copying it to the hard drive. If you eject the CD/DVD, of course you can't still run the application. The same idea applies here.
Always copy applications from the disk image to the applications folder, and you'll be fine.