The two easiest Aqua methods to help you browse through the hard dtive are the Finder and Spotlight.

Using Finder
To begin you can either open a Finder window from the Dock, the Menu Bar, or by simply double click on a hard drive.  Most Macs only have one hard drive called the "Macintosh HD".  A Finder window will appear based on how it and the Sidebar have been configured.

You will see that the window is divided into two parts, the left is called the Sidebar.  A single click will select an item in the Sidebar whereas double clicks are required to select an item in the Finder Window on the right.  It's that simple.

You can  also alter the Finder view to change how you'd like to perform your search.

Using Spotlight
Spotlight is the Mac OS X desktop search technology that makes it easy to search for things no matter where they are located.  To find something you will need to initiate a search.  Read the following guides:

• Perform a Spotlight Search
• Spotlight Searches in Finder

Use the Command Line
An alternate method to browse through a hard drive would be to use the command line.  You can do this with the Terminal application.  The command line requires knowledge of the appropriate UNIX commands.

Updates

• April 29, 2009 - content revision