Question: 2011 Macbook Pro

My hard drive icon suddenly appeared on my desktop today. When I clicked on it, it said "you can not open this because you are not authorized to". I went into preferences> general> on to the screen " things I want displayed on desktop" and the hard drive icon was not checked off. I checked it and another icon appeared, I unchecked it and the second icon disappeared. I ended up turning the computer off completely and waited 10 seconds, turned it back on. The icon was gone. Does this seem alarming to anyone?

Thanks-

Laura