Home Folder Issues

posterboyposterboy
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
A friend of mine (unfortuneatly over the net so I dont have all of the specifics) read on the internet a method for moviing your home folder to another hard drive partition using netinfo. He did so, and now things is a little messed up.



Most stuff is going alright. But there are a few issues, such as the Terminal now doesn't recognise his home folder correctly, or rather it does, every other time.

Chimera likes to crash a lot more, but considering that it isn't even at version 1.0 yet, I can't say for sure it is related to the problem.

There are a few other apps that either refuse to launch or or launch and then crash and burn.



I have been helping, but this is beyond my UNIX knowledge.



I was wondering if because some apps map out where their prefs and all that are and now those files are moved, would re-installing said apps help? Prebinding did not. What permissions?



Any responses or help would be much appreciated. I am about ready to just tell him to move the damn home folder back to where it is supposed to be.



Any suggestions?



Thanks in advance,



--PB

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    torifiletorifile Posts: 4,024member
    I don't know what the answer to your question is, but the moral of the story is leave your home folder where is starts.



    As an aside, I've been able to move my home folder to another partition without any ill consequences as long as the partition it went to didn't have any spaces. I couldn't figure out how to address that in the netinfo manager. Does his drive name have spaces in it? He could check the forums at macosxhints.com. I seem to recall a thread there a while back about this issue. :/
  • Reply 2 of 6
    posterboyposterboy Posts: 147member
    The drive that the home folder is now on is called "MacHD". I cannot remember the name of the other partition, I dont suppose that matters?



    --PB
  • Reply 3 of 6
    kecksykecksy Posts: 1,002member
    Which drive is the directory "/" located on?
  • Reply 4 of 6
    stimulistimuli Posts: 564member
    does OSX use /etc/fstab ?

    if so, make sure his home is mounted at the proper place, and there are not two home folders competing for the same mount point.



    If OSX uses /etc/fstab (ie: does this file exist?), get him to get you to post it here, so I can peep it.
  • Reply 5 of 6
    torifiletorifile Posts: 4,024member
    OS X uses netinfo. I think that there is an fstab file, but it's overridden. What's the problem exactly? The description was a little vague.
  • Reply 6 of 6
    junkyard dawgjunkyard dawg Posts: 2,801member
    I keep my home folder on a different partition so that I can erase and install new versions of OS X quickly and easily. It makes it easier to back up your home folder as well.



    First you need to copy your home folder to a new partition. This involves more than drag n' drop, because you have to preserve permissions and sym links and so forth. There is a way to do this with the terminal using the ditto command, but I perfer to use the app "Carbon Copy Cloner". This app will copy your home directory wherever you like and preserve all the permissions and stuff.



    <a href="http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html"; target="_blank">http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html</a>;



    Next, you need to tell OS X where the new home folder is:



    <a href="http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2002/02/08/netinfo.html"; target="_blank">http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2002/02/08/netinfo.html</a>;



    Once you've made the proper changes to netinfo, OS X will treat the new home folder location exactly like the old. Applications will store preferences and app support files in your new home directory no problem. It will work exactly the same as the old home directory, with the advantage of keeping your docs and library intact even if you hose your OS X system.
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