Desktop icons not showing up properly

[wenn]

Okay, I'm very new to Mac, as I only recently got a G4 powerbook and am now in the process of transferring files from my old PC.

I noticed that when I call up the Info panel on my harddrive on my desktop and tried to change the icon to a pic that I like, the icon doesn't show up properly. Instead of displaying the image that I pasted over, it showed up as a generic jpeg/gif icon instead.

I've gone hunting online for tips, and most of the sites that came up mentioned desktop rebuilding, but unfortunately, I'm running on Tiger, with no Panther installed, and the help section suggested installing a Mac OS 9 folder on my G4.

So I'm posting here to ask for alternatives to working around the problem; so can I get the desktop icons to show up right without having to install Classic onto Tiger and doing a desktop rebuild? If I can, how do I do that? If I can't, and desktop rebuilding is the only way to go, how do I do that and what are the chances of my Mac crashing on me? Btw, I've also read somewhere that desktop rebuilding may or may not help. Can someone enlighten me please?

Thanks in advance for any help or advice given.

In need of help,
Wenn.

[Mikuro]

Desktop rebuilding will not help. It's a strictly Classic thing, which is why it can only be done in Classic.

My best guess is that you're copying your image file's icon, not the image itself. In OS X, you can choose to have image files show previews as their icons. However, these aren't their REAL icons. The real icon will be the generic gif/jpeg; the Finder will just load the image itself when it needs it and use that instead. A little confusing, I know.

So the thing to do is to open your image in Preview (or whatever image viewer you prefer), copy it, and then paste it onto your hard disk's icon. That should do it.

Hope this helps.

[wenn]

Hi, Mikuro,

Thanks for the quick response and thanks for the tip. You're right in that I did copy the image icon instead of opening it in the preview panel first. I will give it a try again tonight and see if the icons will show up alright. Will let you know if it works (which I think probably will).

Thanks again,
Wenn.

[Randman]

Log off and back on.

[wenn]

Hi, Mikuro,

This is to let you know that your suggestion worked. Thanks very much!!

Wenn.

To Randman: I did that at first, quite a number of times actually, and it didn't work.