computer horror

[lobelia321]

I am in a state of shock and upset.

My ibook has wiped everything.

The desktop has reverted to the way it looked when it came from the shop. Brad Pitt is gone, my shortcuts are gone, Firefozx is gone. My internet connection is gone (I type this at my other imac), printer connection gone. The computer keeps asking me to type in my password when I restart.

I forgot to breathe for about ten seconds, then I started looking around for my stuff. The spotlight would not find anything. On my hard disk, in a folder marked 'users', I found my username and in it all my documents, movies, pictures, preferences are stored. I can see them there but I don't know how to activate them.

What I did this morning was: I saw a lot of folders that annoyed me. I can't remember where I saw them, I think in my username folder (the one that has the icon of a house when you click on 'Home'). I moved these folders around. I think they were user folders and I clearly moved my settings to somewhere the computer doesn't recognise. I am shocked that the ibook allows this to happen. I don't know where the settings are stored. I tried moving a few folders around to different locations but I'm frightened that I might bugger things up even worse so I stopped.

AppleCare isn't available on the phone until Monday morning. I am trying to stay calm. I did, after 15 minutes, find David Hewlett in Century Hotel in a folder and watched The Kiss seven times in a row after which I switched off the ibook, determined not to touch it until I could get professional help.

I feel upset! And sort of tremor shocked. And underneath, very pissed off at Apple for allowing this to happen.

Thank God for my decrepit old mammoth of an imac. It can't do much but it doesn't let me down!!

Comments

[birdgerhl.livejournal.com]

your stuff is still there, fret not!! i could probably sort it out for you but it might be a bit tricky over the phone, without being able to see the machine. but text me if you want and i'll give it a go!!

b.x :D

[birdgerhl.livejournal.com]

*re-reads*

sounds like what you've done is lost your user preferences somewhere, and the computer has reverted to the admin profile. hence - no brad, no printer set-up. it hasn't "wiped" anything. even if you'd actually stuck everything in the trash, and emptied the trash, you could retrieve it with techtool or similar. data is actually incredibly hard to destroy - you'd need to incinerate your hd to glowing for fifteen minutes (or thereabouts...) to *truly* get rid of everything.

I am shocked that the ibook allows this to happen
well, you *can* set a user profile that only allows limited access to folders/files. useful in shared/network situations. but as it's *your* machine, you probably wouldn't want to do this.

b.x :)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I am so terrified of losing stuff but I did not burn my disk for 15 minutes until it glowed so I think I am okay. I think the ibook doesn't know me. It thinks I am a new user, not Lobelia, because can't you have several user accounts on one machine? I am puzzled, though, why it recognises my administrator's password. And my hard disk retains its special name.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

ah...i'm glad you still have your stuff. and it totally sounds like you just need the user password for admin.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid it was way worse than that. I have my documents, thankfully, but all my settings are totally buggered up, and some have still not returned. *wails*

*falls onto sofa in front of SGA evidence with no energy left beyond clicking the remote*

Hm, I lie. I did manage to make a potato salad to calm my frayed nerves, and read t'youngest three chapters of Cornelia Funke's Inkheart instead of the usual one. Do you know it? It is called Tintenherz in German.

[http://users.livejournal.com/ca_tharsis_/]

You're doing good. Stay calm. I feel certain all of your information is still there. My computer was struck by lightining, would not even turn on, and I was still able to retrieve the "lost" data. Rather, the Professionals were.

I'm not familiar with your computer brand. Does it use Windows? If so, there is a feature that allows you to "go back" and reset your computer to an earlier time (when it functioned normally). It's called System Restore.

If you have this, it will be found here:
Start> Programs> Accessories> System Tools> System Restore.

It's easy, just follow the instructions. It may not work, but it's worth a try. Lots of luck.

Catharsis

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you, this looked very promising but I don't have this pathway and couldn't find a system restore. :-(

[rahaeli.livejournal.com]

First of all, stay calm -- everything can be restored. Don't panic. :)

You've moved your Preferences folder, and possibly your entire Library folder. (They should live top-level in your home directory; home -> Library -> Preferences.) OSX doesn't stop you from doing that because it assumes that if you want to, you have a good reason :)

Poke around in some folders -- just looking at something won't hurt anything. Even just moving stuff won't hurt anything, as long as you're not moving it to the trash. In your user directory -- the one with the little icon of the house -- you'll see a folder called Library. This is going to be the one that was automatically created to replace the one you moved.

Now open a new Finder window -- keep the other one in the background. (It's clover-N, if you don't know how to have more than one of them open at a time.) Poke around in your folders and see if you can find a folder called Library somewhere else, wherever you moved it -- see if you can remember where you put it. (I'm going to take an educated guess based on what I've seen other people do and think that you might have moved it into Documents, but that's just a guess.) Once you find it, put that window next to the first one, so you can see them both.

Now, take a deep breath, and do this in order, okay?

In the first window, the one that's in your home directory, click on the Library folder once, and hit return. It'll highlight the name of the folder and let you change the name. Change it to "Library.old" and hit return. Then drag the Library folder that's in the other location (which is your original Library) into the window with your home directory.

Restart your computer. Everything should be back to normal. :)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

The Apple people got me to do this but it worked only partially. In the end, I had to drag everything one by one manually. Some things were in the Systems Library folder, not in my User Library folder. Other things are lost!!! Waaaaaaah.

I need a long hot bath.