How do I make a monitor be the "main one"?

[jive turkey]

Hi, I am seriously getting fricking irritated and I would appreciate some help before I toss this computer out the fracking window.

Every time I reboot, the stupid Mac Pro fails to recognize my main monitor, which is an Apple Cinema display, and dumps everything onto the second monitor. I can usually fix this by rebooting a couple of times or logging off and back on. Today nothing worked. So I unplugged my secondary monitor (a Dell) and rebooted, and things were fine...until I plugged the second monitor back in. When I did that it moved everything over to the second monitor, including the menu bar. So I turned the computer off and unplugged that monitor, and when I cut it back on I had the Apple Display fire up but with no menubar. So I swapped cable connections and tried again and the same thing occurred. Now, after 3 hours of screwing with this, I am stuck with with the tiny dell being the main monitor (with the menubar and desktop, etc) and the big Cinema Display as the secondary screen. I searched through the display preferences to see if I could make monitor one to be the main screen with the menu bar and desktop icons, but I see no such setting. All I can do is rearrange the displays and do color settings.

BTW, I am using Snow Leopard now, but the same thing happened with Leopard, which is why I almost never update. I am using the latest SL, though.

Please save my sanity.

 

[BlueRevolution]

 -> System Preferences -> Displays -> Arrangement -> drag menu bar to your preferred display.

 

[J the Ninja]

In that "Arrangements" tab, drag the little representation of the menu bar onto whichever monitor you want to be the main one. If you can't tell which one is which, click one, it will flash a red border.

 

[spinnerlys]

Can you drag the Menu bar to the Cinema Display as described below?

 

[jive turkey]

Thanks guys. The problem seems to be that when I try to drag the menubar over it just moves the whole display over (like it is rearranging them). It is like when I click the mouse it doesn't recognize the menubar and moves the entire display window instead. I know my eyes are getting bad but I'm pretty sure I am clicking on the menubar.

I do see how you are supposed to do it though, so thanks for your responses. I am going to repair permissions and all of that stuff again while cooking dinner and maybe see if I can get it work.