please help! my ibook's gone back to factory settings
the problem: when i turned my ibook (g4) on today my wallpaper had turned back to the apple one, the dock had gone back to the factory settings et cetera.
in finder, on the left, the movies, pictures folders etc. had changed to just blue folders rather than the icons.
in my home folder (the one with your name) all the folders had disappeared except for desktop and library. all the files i had on the desktop (except macintosh HD) have disappeared.
all the files in the folders except for home and desktop seem to be ok, thankfully.
in safari, all the bookmarks are gone, and it's changed home back to apple.
in finder, it seems to say the same amount of storage is available as it did before this occurred. i've tried searching in spotlight for the files that seem to have disappeared, and it can't find them
yesterday i changed the name of my home folder, which i'm guessing is the reason for all my preferences disappearing. i've tried logging out and in again, but nothing changed.
please help!
edit: it seems exactly the same as this person was experiencing http://forums.appleinsider.com/showt...ctory+settings
in finder, on the left, the movies, pictures folders etc. had changed to just blue folders rather than the icons.
in my home folder (the one with your name) all the folders had disappeared except for desktop and library. all the files i had on the desktop (except macintosh HD) have disappeared.
all the files in the folders except for home and desktop seem to be ok, thankfully.
in safari, all the bookmarks are gone, and it's changed home back to apple.
in finder, it seems to say the same amount of storage is available as it did before this occurred. i've tried searching in spotlight for the files that seem to have disappeared, and it can't find them
yesterday i changed the name of my home folder, which i'm guessing is the reason for all my preferences disappearing. i've tried logging out and in again, but nothing changed.
please help!
edit: it seems exactly the same as this person was experiencing http://forums.appleinsider.com/showt...ctory+settings
Comments
the dock is back to normal, as are the bookmarks, and i've managed to get my iphoto library back etc..
but there are still a few things not right:
in finder when i go to my home, the only files are desktop and library, rather than shortcuts (?) to movies, documents etc.
in finder on the left the icons for movies etc. are just blue folders (no big deal).
i think the problem is with the users files. i have the shared folder, the 'Stephen' folder (which has next to nothing in, as i guess this was the new account), the renamed 'Stephen_new' (as that website advised), and the home icon with my full name.
i think i did something wrong at this stage (when renaming the folders etc) and my ibook is using the wrong one or something.
any help would be greatly appreciated.
edit: when i log out and try to log in, it will only let me log in as my normal name. is there a way to create another login so i might be able to use the Stephen_new folder as my home?
edit again: i just thought of something else - in the users folder it won't let me rename one of the folders to my full name (like the home icon is called) because it can't have two names the same. is there any way to get round this, and if there was would it tell my mac that this is the home folder i want to use? what is the normal name of the home folder (i.e. is it the same as the home icon)?
"First of all - back up the data in your old renamed home folder (especially the Library folder as this is where all your preferences etc will be stored).
Second, move the newly created Home folder (the one with the house icon) to the Trash but don't delete it (you won't be able to at the moment anyway).
You will now be able to re-title your old home folder to its original name again.
Log out and back in. Hopefully the situation will have been recovered and you can now delete the Home folder in the trash."
it sounds a bit risky to me, i don't fancy gambling with putting my home folder in the trash. What do you guys think?
can't anyone give me any ideas?