An alias may open the wrong item when used with two or more volumes (disks or disk partitions) that have an identical volume creation date.
Symptom
An alias opens a file, folder, or application other than the one that is expected.
Note: This article pertains only to an alias that is used on more than one volume, or on a volume other than the one from which it was created. This is most likely to affect a Macintosh Manager environment. However, this could occur when an alias is copied from one volume to another in an unmanaged environment.
Solution
Initialize the disk or disk partition. In a Macintosh Manager environment, this requires initializing all volumes to ensure that each volume has a unique creation date.
Background
This symptom occurs when two or more volumes have an identical creation date (down to minute and second), which effectively serves as a volume serial number for validating an alias. The duplication of creation dates allows an alias to be validated, even if the resulting destination is not correct.