How to add shortcut to Boot Camp partition on desktop?

[NickM]

How do I add a shortcut to my Windows XP partition onto my OS X desktop?
There was one originally, but last night I installed Parallels so I can boot that Windows partition, but then my shortcut to access that partition's files disappeared from my desktop. Now there is only the link to boot it via Parallels. I also want a shortcut to simply access the files.
How can I put one back on there? (yes, I'm very new to OS X)

I'm sure it's simple, but I'm having trouble figuring it out.

Thanks for any help!

EDIT:

Nevermind... after finally rebooting, it showed up again.

However, I would like to know how to manually add a shortcut to other partitions myself.
Please help

 

[redsteven]

Apple refers to a shortcut as an "alias", because it sounds super sophisticated and awesome.

To make an alias of ANYTHING in the finder, you can do one of three things:
1) The super lame method: Click on the file/disk/folder/whatever and go to the File Menu (or right click) and choose "Make Alias"

2) The not-quite-as-lame method: Use the keyboard shortcut "command+L" after highlighting a file/folder/disk

3) The awesome method: Click and drag your file/folder to where you want to put the alias, but before setting it down there, hold down "command+option". When those two keys are held down (and you're dragging a file), you'll see the mouse turn into a little arrow. (That might sound sort of strange because the mouse pointer is always... an arrow... but this is a DIFFERENT, squiggly looking arrow). If you release the mouse button while holding down command+option, the original file will remain where it was, and an alias will be placed where you dropped it with your mouse.


Of course, to do this you need to do be able to find the original file in the first place.

 

[NickM]

Apple refers to a shortcut as an "alias", because it sounds super sophisticated and awesome.

To make an alias of ANYTHING in the finder, you can do one of three things:
1) The super lame method: Click on the file/disk/folder/whatever and go to the File Menu (or right click) and choose "Make Alias"

2) The not-quite-as-lame method: Use the keyboard shortcut "command+L" after highlighting a file/folder/disk

3) The awesome method: Click and drag your file/folder to where you want to put the alias, but before setting it down there, hold down "command+option". When those two keys are held down (and you're dragging a file), you'll see the mouse turn into a little arrow. (That might sound sort of strange because the mouse pointer is always... an arrow... but this is a DIFFERENT, squiggly looking arrow). If you release the mouse button while holding down command+option, the original file will remain where it was, and an alias will be placed where you dropped it with your mouse.


Of course, to do this you need to do be able to find the original file in the first place.

Thanks for the insightful response.
Your last sentence is my problem... Where do I find the Windows partition??
In other words, where would the Mac equivalent of "My Computer" be?

Anyone?

Thanks again!


ps - Funny comment about Apple's reasoning behind choosing "alias."
To me, "shortcut" seems like a much more appropriate word for what the thing is.
Alias doesn't even make sense to me. Then again, I'm a more realistic and literal type of
person.

 

[xoggyux]

Thanks for the insightful response.
Your last sentence is my problem... Where do I find the Windows partition??
In other words, where would the Mac equivalent of "My Computer" be?

Anyone?

Thanks again!

open spotlight (command+spacebar) type in disk utility (usually after you press "d" and "i" is the first option and you can press enter ) find your disk on the left menu, and select mount (if each time you run parallels it goes away then you might want to do some research to see if you can make an script or something to mount it easier.

 

[NickM]

open spotlight (command+spacebar) type in disk utility (usually after you press "d" and "i" is the first option and you can press enter ) find your disk on the left menu, and select mount (if each time you run parallels it goes away then you might want to do some research to see if you can make an script or something to mount it easier.

Thank you very much

 

[xoggyux]

Thank you very much

thanks very much worked????

 

[NickM]

thanks very much worked????

It does seem that every time I run XP through Parallels, my original SHORTCUT to the XP partition (that sits on my OS X desktop) disappears... but reappears when I close Parallels... not sure why it does that.

I just wanted to have quick access to the XP partition, without having to boot up Parallels.
If I could only get that original XP shortcut to stay put when I load Parallels...

 

[xoggyux]

It does seem that every time I run XP through Parallels, my original SHORTCUT to the XP partition (that sits on my OS X desktop) disappears... but reappears when I close Parallels... not sure why it does that.

I just wanted to have quick access to the XP partition, without having to boot up Parallels.
If I could only get that original XP shortcut to stay put when I load Parallels...

I would not work since parallels unmount the partition to prevent any changes you could possibly do on the windows partition, if you need to get access to info inside the partition you should instead try to get it directly from windows or otherwise from network (most virtualization programs will add the virtual machine to the network)

 

[NickM]

I would not work since parallels unmount the partition to prevent any changes you could possibly do on the windows partition, if you need to get access to info inside the partition you should instead try to get it directly from windows or otherwise from network (most virtualization programs will add the virtual machine to the network)

Ahhh...Ok. That seems to make sense.
Thanks again for the helpful info.