Serious Problem

[McApple]

Alright, this is starting to piss me off. For the second time something happened to my computer that made all my applications reset. Most of my stuff I got back from syncing with .mac (like bookmarks and address book contacts). It didn't really delete anything, but things won't come up in spotlight that are on my computer. I think it may have to do with the fact that in Macintosh HD > Users there are two "Names" - Aaron (Me), with the home icon, and aaron_d (My .Mac Account Name), not with the home folder icon but when I open it, it is another home folder. So, I have two home folders basically. I don't know how this happened, but I think it had something to do with when I was networking my computer with other windows computers in my house. Now, when I download things to my "Desktop" from Safari it doesn't go to my desktop that I see in front of me, but rather it goes to the folder "Desktop" under the "aaron_d" home folder. I just want to have one home folder named Aaron and have all my stuff back to normal. Does anybody have any suggestions on what to do, what might have happened, and/or how to prevent this from happening again?

 

[Makosuke]

I've never once heard of a problem like that, but my suggestion would be to create a brand new user from scratch, carefully move over only what settings you really need and just manually reconfigure the rest, then delete both of the old users completely (be sure to do it properly from the System Pref first). That should eliminate any oddness that's happening.

Only disadvantage is that you'll have to use aaron1 or something for the shortname, since the one you want is already taken--you could jump through creating a 2nd user, archiving the "bad" aaron, then recreating it afresh, but I'd just start clean if I were you--maybe use your initials or something.

The other option would be to do a backup and clean install, then reimport all the necessary data from your old users, but that's more hassle. If the above fails it should work, though.

Good luck.

 

[McApple]

Thanks for your response. I was hoping I would not have to do the backup option but I will if I have to. I will try your suggestion and see if it works and maybe will call AppleCare as well.