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Just noticed something different . . .

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beacher:
On the other computers that I've had (G3, G4 w/2 hard drives), when I dragged something from 1 partition (or HD) to another, it actually made a copy of the old app or data to the new one.  With the G5 Quad, which has OSX 10.4.11 on one HD, and Leopard 10.5.8 on the other, when I dragged an app or a jpg from the first hard drive to the second, apparently it created an alias! When did they start doing that?  And, if I actually want to carry something over, rather than an alias, how do I accomplish it?  Sheesh. . . Just when I thought I had everything figured out As usual,   in advance!

krissel:
Somewhere along the line in X they decided that dragging  certain files (usually a drive icon or mounted dmg) from one volume to another would create an alias since they figured that was really what you wanted with such a large item. But if you really want to  copy it just hold down the Option key while dragging it and you will see a little green + show up by the cursor to tell you it is copying the item.

BTW, if you press the Command key while you let go of an item you are drag/copying, it will be moved and the original will be deleted. I don't trust this action myself. I'd rather go back and delete manually just in case the moved file somehow got corrupted in the move.

jchuzi:
I have two bootable drives (clones, actually) and one drive dedicated to storage of really large files (not bootable). In addition, a fourth drive is dedicated to Time Machine. All drives are internal. Naturally, I don't manually copy anything to the TM machine drive but if I drag a file or folder from one drive to another, it is copied. No alias is produced.

Xairbusdriver:
The behavior of dragging files has not changed in OS X, at least not in Panther, Leopard or Snow Leopard.

Dragging an item, regardless of from and to anywhere, always create a real copy of the item in the new location.
If the two locations are on the same partition, the original location will not have the item any longer.
If the two locations are on different partitions, it item will actually be in both partitions.

To make an alias always requires extra keys.

To make a duplicate in a new location in a single partition always requires the option key.

Them's my facts and I'm stickin' to 'um, no matter what!

If you are not accidentally pressing the opinion and command keys while doing this dragging, I'd suggest trying the same copying while logged in to as a different user.

krissel:
OK, try this:

If you have two volumes and one is your boot volume. drag its icon onto another volume icon.

Or, open a dmg and drag the dmg volume icon over another volume icon.

What happens?

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