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Help! Terminal deleted everything from my desktop!

F

fmp3

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 29, 2006
12
2
So I was trying to do something in terminal and I ended up deleting a lot of files from my computer. It deleted everything from my desktop, everything in my document and download files, and reset a lot of the settings and preferences from my computer. My music and bookmarks were all spared.

I was copy/pasting this:
cd ~
mkdir mctmp
cd mctmp
jar xf ~/Library/Application\ Support/minecraft/bin/minecraft.jar
and this:
rm META-INF/MOJANG_C.*
jar uf ~/Library/Application\ Support/minecraft/bin/minecraft.jar ./
cd ..
rm -rf mctmp
into terminal.

I seriously need some help. Is there anyway I can recover the files that were lost?
 
Looked into your Trash yet? Do you have any kind of backup?

Anyway, I am not proficient in Terminal, but I only see one "remove" command (rm), but due to the "-rf" parameters you might have deleted some important data.


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Maybe have a look at Advanced Search to find similar threads about that Minecraft mod, since it happened more often in the past few months:
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simsaladimbamba said:
Looked into your Trash yet? Do you have any kind of backup?

Anyway, I am not proficient in Terminal, but I only see one "remove" command (rm), but due to the "-rf" parameters you might have deleted some important data.


____________________________________________________________

Maybe have a look at Advanced Search to find similar threads about that Minecraft mod, since it happened more often in the past few months:
____________________________________________________________
​
Click to expand...

Wow. You were right. Apparently I wasn't the only person who's had this problem. Well I have a backup of one folder, but it will be unfortunate if I cannot retrieve the other files.
 
simsaladimbamba said:
Looked into your Trash yet? Do you have any kind of backup?

Anyway, I am not proficient in Terminal, but I only see one "remove" command (rm), but due to the "-rf" parameters you might have deleted some important data.


____________________________________________________________

Maybe have a look at Advanced Search to find similar threads about that Minecraft mod, since it happened more often in the past few months:
____________________________________________________________
​
Click to expand...

You wouldn't happen to know where I can talk to someone who is proficient in terminal?
 
That's kind of weird; those terminal commands seem pretty straightforward, and I don't see where any of the rm commands would delete anything other than what they're supposed to.

The symptoms you're describing sound like you deleted almost the entire contents of your Home folder (except I'd expect that to delete your Music folder as well--not sure how you'd get Documents and Desktop, but spare that one... or for that matter how you'd lose some preferences but not your bookmarks--those should all be in the same place). Is your Documents folder empty, or gone completely?

Which would happen if, for example, you had done "cd ~" followed by "rm -rf ./" (do NOT enter that pair of commands in the Terminal--they would do what you're trying to undo).

Assuming you were just copying and pasting those exact commands, the only thing I can think of is if the "jar" command did something unexpected.


To confirm whether things got deleted or just moved, you can try searching for a filename that you know was in your Documents folder and see if it's somewhere else on disk. If not, your best bet is restoring from a backup (which it sounds like you don't have--take this as a lesson and start). You could also download a copy of Data Rescue 3; if you're lucky it will find deleted files it can salvage, but I wouldn't get my hopes up, and the restoration process could be time consuming and messy.

If your Home folder did get cleaned out, rather than moved restoring from a backup is your best bet.
 
Here's another suggestion: create a throwaway user.

That is, create a user (non-admin) whose sole purpose is to be safely disposible. You don't care if its home folder gets deleted, or anything else bad happens to it. Then do all your Terminal experiments only with that user.

Even I find this useful in some cases (I have a couple sacrificial users), and I've been doing shell commands for a very long time.


And I agree with Makosuke: I don't see anything wrong with those Terminal commands, either.

Where did you read them from? Post the URL, please.
Did you actually copy and paste them, or was there something that was typed? Pasted all at once or one by one?
 
Look at the size of "~/Library/Application\ Support/minecraft/bin/minecraft.jar"
How big is it? If it's huge, that might contain all your data.

Otherwise, I'd go with the disk rescue suggestion.

Keep in mind, the more you use this drive, the more likely the files you had lost will be lost forever. Please use another boot drive of some sort to access the net and search for info, as you might be doing further damage to your recovery chances.

If you can't afford disk rescue, you might have to go with something less fancy and more tedious like testdisk (http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk)
(I think testdisk loses most of the file names if I recall correctly.)
 
Me Too!

fmp3 said:
So I was trying to do something in terminal and I ended up deleting a lot of files from my computer. It deleted everything from my desktop, everything in my document and download files, and reset a lot of the settings and preferences from my computer. My music and bookmarks were all spared.

I was copy/pasting this:
cd ~
mkdir mctmp
cd mctmp
jar xf ~/Library/Application\ Support/minecraft/bin/minecraft.jar
and this:
rm META-INF/MOJANG_C.*
jar uf ~/Library/Application\ Support/minecraft/bin/minecraft.jar ./
cd ..
rm -rf mctmp
into terminal.

I seriously need some help. Is there anyway I can recover the files that were lost?
Click to expand...

This happened to me too:mad: I was trying to install TMI so I typed it in Terminal and then BOOM:eek: everything was gone:( My games don't work and minecraft got deleted so I had to redownload it, but my music and bookmarks (also some pictures) were all spared. Please tell me how to fix it when you know:eek: Wished I had a WINDOWS!!!!!!
 
FinalDestinater said:
This happened to me too:mad: I was trying to install TMI so I typed it in Terminal and then BOOM:eek: everything was gone:( My games don't work and minecraft got deleted so I had to redownload it, but my music and bookmarks (also some pictures) were all spared. Please tell me how to fix it when you know:eek: Wished I had a WINDOWS!!!!!!
Click to expand...

It is not terminal's fault. It is your fault not knowing what you are doing. It does not matter even if it is windows or linux or whatever OS. As long as you know what you are doing then you are safe.

The jar command might have done it for you.

I don't know this commands and I am not a an of MineCraft. Totally waste of my time. I have better things to do than playing with it.

Since you have more time playing, have more time reading from Java resources.

"jar xf" is extracting files from .jar and jar -uf is updating it. But afterwards you rm so I guess it removes everything on whatever folder you are in.
I most certain your files are still there, it is just archived by the jar command. If it is deleted, its on the trash. Or I might be wrong.
 
Last edited:
Nameci said:
It is not terminal's fault. It is your fault not knowing what you are doing. It does not matter even if it is windows or linux or whatever OS. As long as you know what you are doing then you are safe.

The jar command might have done it for you.

I don't know this commands and I am not a an of MineCraft. Totally waste of my time. I have better things to do than playing with it.

Since you have more time playing, have more time reading from Java resources.

I most certain your files are still there, it is just archived by the jar command. If it is deleted, its on the trash. Or I might be wrong.
Click to expand...

So what should I do then? Anyway to get my files back?
 
Confucius say:

He that play with Terminal's fire,
Should be prepared to get burned.

If you didn't keep a proper backup (I ALWAYS recommend a fully-bootable backup created with either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper), you may be, well, "up the creek"...
 
FinalDestinater said:
Ok Thanks a lot so sad I can't get my data back:( Ill NEVER use jar again or mine craft I SWEAR!
Click to expand...

jar itself isn't to blame. This is far outside the norm... Just for further information, this is what those commands do:

1. cd ~
(go to home folder)

2. mkdir mctmp
(create folder called mctmp)

3. cd mctmp
(go into mctmp folder)

4. jar xf ~/Library/Application\ Support/minecraft/bin/minecraft.jar
(extract minecraft.jar into mctmp folder)

5. rm META-INF/MOJANG_C.*
(delete META-INF/MOJANG_C* from mctmp folder)

6. jar uf ~/Library/Application\ Support/minecraft/bin/minecraft.jar ./
(update minecraft.jar with the contents of the mctmp folder)

7. cd ..
(go to the parent directory of mctmp, which is the home folder)

8. rm -rf mctmp
(delete the mctmp folder)

Oh and in Terminal, Trash is treated as a normal directory, so putting something in the Trash would be "mv file ~/.Trash/". The "rm" command is a permanent delete, skipping the Trash.
 
If one of the lines that you copied and pasted has a stray space in it, you could have easily nuked quite a number of files in your home directory.

Truth be told, the 'rm' commands are not necessary for the given instructions. You can delete the data out of META_INF via the Finder once you have executed the jar -xf command, and you can use the finder to clean up the mctemp folder after you have used the jar -uf command.

rm unlinks a file from the filesystem—it does not use a holding area like the Trash. If there are not other links to the file elsewhere, it is gone. Additionally, the parameters -rf cause rm to work recursively into all subdirectories (r), and causes it to remove files without prompting for confirmation (f).
 
FinalDestinater said:
This happened to me too:mad: I was trying to install TMI so I typed it in Terminal and then BOOM:eek: everything was gone:( My games don't work and minecraft got deleted so I had to redownload it, but my music and bookmarks (also some pictures) were all spared. Please tell me how to fix it when you know:eek: Wished I had a WINDOWS!!!!!!
Click to expand...

Please post the URL where you got your Terminal commands from.

As previously stated in this thread, the commands shown (which you've quoted) will not delete everything. Something else must have happened. If no one knows what the "something else" is, no one can help you fix it.

Worse, no one can see whether the Terminal commands you used are correct or not, so other people may continue to make the same mistake. No one with knowledge of Terminal commands knows what to correct.

----------
Dalton63841 said:
jar itself isn't to blame. This is far outside the norm...
Click to expand...

I agree. Even if some of the commands failed, such as mkdir failing to make a directory, or cd failing to move into a directory, the posted commands simply won't do a mass delete. At least not as given. If some unknown typos are added into the mix, including stray spaces, then all bets are off. Accuracy is important.
 
chown33 said:
I agree. Even if some of the commands failed, such as mkdir failing to make a directory, or cd failing to move into a directory, the posted commands simply won't do a mass delete. At least not as given. If some unknown typos are added into the mix, then all bets are off. Accuracy is important.
Click to expand...

That's what struck me as odd. As written, these commands would not cause this result under any circumstance. My first thought was a mistype, but the OP claims to have copy/pasted the commands.
 
chown33 said:
Please post the URL where you got your Terminal commands from.

As previously stated in this thread, the commands shown (which you've quoted) will not delete everything. Something else must have happened. If no one knows what the "something else" is, no one can help you fix it.

Worse, no one can see whether the Terminal commands you used are correct or not, so other people may continue to make the same mistake. No one with knowledge of Terminal commands knows what to correct.

----------



I agree. Even if some of the commands failed, such as mkdir failing to make a directory, or cd failing to move into a directory, the posted commands simply won't do a mass delete. At least not as given. If some unknown typos are added into the mix, including stray spaces, then all bets are off. Accuracy is important.
Click to expand...

Ok so this is the website:http://www.9minecraft.net/toomanyitems/, I copy and pasted the thing correctly
 
FinalDestinater said:
Ok so this is the website:http://www.9minecraft.net/toomanyitems/, I copy and pasted the thing correctly
Click to expand...

I see only one thing that's potentially wrong with that article. It's where their styling makes it look like two separate commands:
Code: 
jar uf ~/Library/Application\ Support/minecraft/bin/minecraft.jar
./
This would be wrong. It would also not work (error message). And it shouldn't delete anything.

Other than that, there's nothing I see there that will do a mass delete, if used exactly as given.

I also note that the instructions on the page say to type in the commands, rather than using copy/paste. This seems like a strategy readymade for mistakes.

Maybe you weren't as accurate as you thought, or maybe there was something else wrong. It's impossible to say without seeing an actual transcript of what was done.

It's not uncommon for people unaccustomed to command-lines to make mistakes. I see it regularly, even when I specifically give instructions to use copy and paste.


For future reference, it's not necessary to run these two commands in Terminal:
Code: 
cd ..
rm -rf mctmp
Instead, one can do this in place of running those commands:
  1. Quit Terminal.app
  2. Use Finder to trash the mctmp folder.
 
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