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General discussion

Mac os 10.4 Tiger losing all of my data

Apr 2, 2007 1:14PM PDT

i have an iBook G4, 768 MB ram, 60 GB HD, 12". I have tiger installed as an upgrade, and there were few, if any problems. Recently, after changing no system files or deleting anything, the computer truned on and there were no files. All my data had been erased, the clock reset, and all updates removed. It had been more than a month since upgrading to tiger, and like i said, the computer had turned off just fine, and then when i booted it up, everythhing was gone. I am currently on a PC because i find even them more reliable then if this was going to ever happen again.

Discussion is locked

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It is unlikely that
Apr 2, 2007 9:49PM PDT

all your data has gone away.
The fact that you booted the machine up would indicate that, at the very least, there is a fully operational OS installed on the drive.
Clock resetting is sometimes an indication of a dead or defective battery.

You will have to be a little more specific about what has actually happened and what you can currently see on the desktop of the booted machie.
Can you see the HD, usually in the top right of the screen? What happens when you double click the HD icon.
Do you see a Users folder? What is inside it?

Define "all updates removed". What version of OS X is now on the machine? Exactly what were these updates?

P

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Problem
Apr 2, 2007 11:37PM PDT

Thats the problem, i dont know. I even talked to an apple specialist, and he could not figure it out. I know computers well, but this is out of my area of expertice. I brought friends of mine who, like me are very good on macs, and they could not figure it out. But it was gone, all drive status was reset ( size, available space). Even thepartitions on the external drive.

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Interesting
Apr 3, 2007 12:31AM PDT

What exactly do you see when the machine is booted up?

Once again, if the machine boots, it has an OS installed on the HD.

Can you see the HD?

What exactly do you mean by "Drive Status"

What happens when you boot the machine from the OS X installation DVD?

Your tale is a little confusing. Are you saying that you boot the machine, see nothing on the desktop but are able to glean that the HD has been wiped clean along with the external HD disk?
OR,
Is there something you have left out of the story?
There is a severe lack of information so far.


P

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reply
Apr 3, 2007 8:34AM PDT

what i am trying to say, is that it looks as though mac os has been completely reinstalled. Like there is a clean copy of mac on my mac, and that it resets everything to the default, all settings and everything.

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Ahhh
Apr 3, 2007 9:36AM PDT

How many users are there in the Users folder? If any
How many accounts are there in the Accounts preference pane? If any
What version of the OS is currently installed?
Before the incident, had you installed any applications on that machine? If so, and I'm sure you did, is there any trace of them in the Applications folder or are there only the default applications in there? If the answer to that is No, then use Spotlight and enter the name of any of the pieces of software that you installed prior to this. You should find traces of these in various libraries around the machine.
Also, open the Console and check the logs in there. If this happened as you say, there will be a record in the logs of when, who and how. If the logs only start from the date of the problem, there should still be data in them. Even a brand new machine, booted just once, has data in the logs.
Check it out.

As you have a number of Mac friends, would it be possible to connect this machine to another Mac, boot into Target mode and check to see exactly what is on this drive?

Now, there is one more possibility but you may not want to got there.
Is it even remotely possible that someone has used the installation disk and done a Format and Install on this machine? There is no bug, that I know of, that will destroy ALL the data, reinstall the OS, repartition and initialize an external drive and yet, apparently, leave all your account data in place so that you could log on.

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Interesting
Apr 6, 2007 12:47PM PDT

This post interested me because I have never heard of anyone with this scenario and as far as I'm concerned it's impossible to happen as described.
The data is on the mac somewhere.
What happens if a new account gets created and the Mac boots into that?
Wouldn't you get the scenario described?
Check under System Prefernces>Accounts

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Same thing happened to me today!!
May 1, 2007 12:22PM PDT

This same thing happened to me! I restarted my computer and the screen came on looking just WHITE. So i pressed the restart button and when the computer rebooted as normal me desktop looked the way it did when i first started it, after buying it new. And all the files i had saved onto the desktop were gone. However the files i had saved inside the harddrive folder remained intact. I did a FIND and a SPOTLIGHT search for files i knew were there and they were gone. Also all my itunes, iphotos, and emails on etourage were wiped clean.

Any help is appreciated.

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Did you check which user account you're in?
May 1, 2007 12:57PM PDT

.......and if you can see your files in the hard drive (folder), they are certainly still there.
The desktop is also a folder in your hard drive.....in fact anything you save anywhere on the computer (Mac or otherwise) is either on the hard drive or saved temporarily on the RAM.

My guess is that you somehow logged into a new user account - that would explain what you're seeing on the desktop - ie a clean slate.

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User Account
May 1, 2007 1:18PM PDT

I had that same thought. Actually i looked and i am the only user, the Admin actually.

NOw that i think of it what id id do right before is i got INFO of the house icon, and tried to change the name in the NAME & EXTENSIONS tab from the previous employee who had been using my computer to my name. Then eveything went downhill from there after i restarted.

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Change the home folder (house) name back
May 1, 2007 3:57PM PDT

to what it originally was.

That should bring your files back.

Then follow these directions from the Apple help menu:


About the home folder's name
Each user has his or her own home folder named using the short user name for the account. The short user name for a user cannot be changed. Do not change the name of a home folder.

If you want to use a different short user name, you must create a new user (this requires administrator privileges). You can then move items from your previous home folder to your new home folder if you wish.


If you have accidentally changed the name of your Home folder and your desktop looks different or you cannot find your files, you need to change the name back to the original name.

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HOUSE NAME
May 2, 2007 4:38AM PDT

So when i try to change it back it says "The name is already taken, please choose a different name"

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How are you changing the name back?
May 2, 2007 4:53AM PDT

Are you following these steps in the Apple help menu carefully?

To correct a home folder whose name has been changed:

Locate the User's folder on your hard disk and open it.

Select the home folder with the original short user name and the home icon. This folder usually contains a Desktop folder and a Library folder. Add "_new" to the end of the name so that you can distinguish it later.

Select the regular folder that has the name you used when you changed your original home folder. This folder should contain items you would expect to find in your original home folder, such as your Pictures folder, Documents folder, and so on. Change the name of this folder back to the original short user name.

Log out, then log in again and verify that items are back where they belong.

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Thank you!
May 2, 2007 5:56AM PDT

It worked!! Thanks for your help! I cant thank you enough!