New to OS X - How do I navigate through finder? I am used to Windows because I simply go to computer and can click my partition and see my entire file structure right there. I can go to users, and then view my documents, and I also have the handy address bar in an explorer window. I just got OS X and I can't figure out how to navigate the file system, and I never know where I am in the file system. Can anyone give me tips on these two problems?
You can drag the home and root folders to the sidebar. They used to be there by default, but they were removed in 10.7.



I have also removed all of the default locations, so the root folder of column view windows is always ~/ or /.

⇧⌘G opens a Go to Folder sheet. It can also be opened by pressing ~ or / in file dialogs.



You can show the path at the bottom by checking View > Show Path Bar:



There is also a hidden preference for showing the path on the title bar:

defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool true
killall Finder