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IG88 · Jun 13, 2005, 01:52 PM

I hope someone can help me ..or I'm in big trouble !! I was changing my desktop background on my new mac (tiger installed) and suddenly all my personal settings and documents on the desktop have gone !!! all my emails have gone , safari bookmarks .. customised font settings etc are all reset to default . The worst thing is my wifes work is gone which was saved to the desktop is gone ( not backed up yet as we're just getting the hang of this mac and I 've just learned to burn cd's ).. yes stupid I know

Where could the desktop files be ? there is nothing in the trash ..

please if anyone can help I'd really appreciate it

d.fine · Jun 13, 2005, 01:56 PM

Check out the ' users ' folder. Inside you'll find a ' Desktop ' folder.
What where you doing? Something else you can give us? Seems strange that changing the background could cause such mayhem. Haven't you switched users somehow or something alike?

IG88 · Jun 13, 2005, 03:31 PM

Thanks for the reply d.fine.. I have checked this folder and the desktop folder is empty. I'll tell you what I did . I right clicked on the desktop and selected 'change desktop background' I then selected 'choose folder' to choose my pictures folder. as soon as I clicked on the 'change picture every 30 minues option' everthing changed .. I noticed it straight away as I had changed all the colours in system preferences to grey/graphite and they all turned to blue .. everything went back to as if I had just turned the mac on for the first time... The funny thing is I can find the emails and word documents using spotlight but as I am new to mac I cannot find out where exactly they are on the disk ...sorry to sound so dumb ..it's annoying as I don't think I did anything to cause this to happen ..I have only one user set up (myself)

bma_mat99 · Jun 13, 2005, 03:54 PM

look, i dont know if this will help, but try using "command(apple) + f" to search for the files missing, maybe this will help you find it.... hope this helps.

IG88 · Jun 13, 2005, 04:08 PM

thanks a lot for your help but I found a folder called cs (that was the name of my home folder) in Finder/applications/ this had all my missing desktop documents and as far as my emails go I used spotlight to open them and copy the important stuff into text documents .. I have burned what ever I need to cd and am about to wipe the disk and do a clean install ... what a headache .. I haven't got to much saved as I 've only had the mac a week ... hopefully this won't happen to me again !!!!

TETENAL · Jun 13, 2005, 04:24 PM

Is it possible that you logged into another user by mistake?

Azzgunther · Jun 13, 2005, 04:35 PM

Well, bounty hunter, for the future you should know that there are two different ways that you can search for a document in Spotlight®™©.

1) Menu Bar - Type your inquiry into the pull down window from the magnifying glass on the upper right corner, and then you can hit ENTER to move the search into a window. Then left click on the blue-circled I to the right of the file name and it tells you the path to the file.

2) Hit Apple+F simultaneously and search for your file in the window that pops up. If you click on the file you want one time (anywhere, not necessary to hit hte blue circle this time) you will see its path on the bottom of the window.

Brass · Jun 13, 2005, 05:28 PM

Originally Posted by IG88

thanks a lot for your help but I found a folder called cs (that was the name of my home folder) in Finder/applications/ this had all my missing desktop documents and as far as my emails go I used spotlight to open them and copy the important stuff into text documents .. I have burned what ever I need to cd and am about to wipe the disk and do a clean install ... what a headache .. I haven't got to much saved as I 've only had the mac a week ... hopefully this won't happen to me again !!!!

Sounds like you moved your home directory into the Applications directory. Not sure how that could happen accidentally, but it would certainly cause the symptoms you described (everything reset to "first login" state - ie, no preferences set, and no files in your new home directory, which would have3 been automatically re-created).

Apfhex · Jun 13, 2005, 06:01 PM

Originally Posted by Brass

Sounds like you moved your home directory into the Applications directory. Not sure how that could happen accidentally, but it would certainly cause the symptoms you described (everything reset to "first login" state - ie, no preferences set, and no files in your new home directory, which would have3 been automatically re-created).

Yes, this sounds exactly like what happened from what I read. Must've accidentally been clicking around and moved it there (I've seen new users doing similar things, clicking around everywhere until suddenly there are things in places they shouldn't be). *IF* that's the case, then if you move the folder back to /Users, it should restore your data... but be careful...

IG88 · Jun 13, 2005, 06:25 PM

Thank you Azzgunther for your spotlight tips. I managed to retrieve my documents and burn them to disk...I would like to thank everyone else for your help.. I do believe I have dragged my home folder within Finder into the the Application directory by mistake because that's excatly where it was..it seems the only reasonable explination for my problem. I did have many windows open at the time and probably wasn't too sure what I was doing. I have performed a clean install of OSX and will begin again .. this time being more careful !!! .. Generally I am very pleased with this new mac I have bought... It's a welcome change from my old windows pc ..

thanks once again everyone

TETENAL · Jun 13, 2005, 06:53 PM

I just tried that and it is indeed possible to move one's own home folder into the Applications folder.

Is this a bug? Shouldn't permissions prevent you from doing that?

d.fine · Jun 14, 2005, 02:50 AM

Originally Posted by TETENAL

I just tried that and it is indeed possible to move one's own home folder into the Applications folder.
Is this a bug? Shouldn't permissions prevent you from doing that?

It sounds like it. Should indeed be more difficult to move this folder.
Well glad a solution has been found, and you didn't loose all your files. Shouldn't moving the home folder back to where it belongs fix things? (make a backup first).

Brass · Jun 14, 2005, 05:30 PM

Originally Posted by TETENAL

I just tried that and it is indeed possible to move one's own home folder into the Applications folder.

Is this a bug? Shouldn't permissions prevent you from doing that?

Standard permissions behaviour shouldn't prevent it (after all, it's YOUR folder, you should be able to do what you want with it). However, some additional functionality in the Finder would be helpfule to bring up a dialog something like "moving your home folder may make you files and preferences unusable - are you sure you want to proceed?".

Boondoggle · Jun 16, 2005, 12:33 AM

This is why smart people off all skill levels do not use an admin account for regular use.

alphasubzero949 · Jun 16, 2005, 01:46 AM

Originally Posted by Boondoggle

This is why smart people off all skill levels do not use an admin account for regular use.

I guess I'm not smart then for using one?

What about all of those other single users out there?

Or perhaps you should complain to Apple that giving single users admin privileges is a bad thing™?

The problem isn't the user, it's yet another thing to add to the FTFF list.