[whitetiger]

I'm curious if anyone knows what's causing a couple odd glitches that experience occasionally with the 'Macintosh HD' icon on the desktop:
1 - If I download a large number of files successively, a certain portion of them get stacked up on the 'Macintosh HD' icon, forcing me to move each one individually.
2 - Inexplicibly, the 'Macintosh HD' icon gets displaced to some other location on the desktop, usually lower right.
Both of these occurrences are merely nuisances, but it would be nice to, at least, know what's going on, if not be able to stop them from happening.
thanks!

[ShermanHoman]

The placement of icons on the desktop is controlled by the com.apple.finder.plist file. When it misbehaves, delete it and restart.
If your desktop is crowded with other files the hard drive icon will unpredictably relocate. Try this: make a new folder on your desktop, call it something clever (I call mine 'current stuff'). Put everything loose on the desktop into the folder, position your hard drive, reboot.