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Upgrade OSX but at restart behaving like clean install

P

parkds

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 23, 2003
332
212
I downloaded Mavericks from, the app store and ran the downloaded installer to perform the upgrade. Everything seemed to run normal. Other than confirming what drive to install to, I was never given any other options. After the computer restarted from installing Mavericks, it is behaving like I did a clean install and is asking me if I want to migrate my data from anywhere. Not sure what has happened and am very worried my data has been erased. I have not moved past the screen asking me where I want to migrate data from in case this is savable.

EDIT: In Disk Utility when I boot from the installer, it reports the correct amount of space being used on the disk (1.8TB)

Thanks for your help!
 
Apple support is saying this is what every major operating system update does (i.e. a clean install).

Person on phone: "Well, this isn't an update, it is an upgrade and an operating system upgrade makes your computer like new. An update is like going from 10.8.4 to 10.8.5."

How can they have someone on the phone who says things like this?
 
how common is this issue. I upgraded my laptop without any problems. It didnt erase anything and performed the upgrade. But now that I see this im afraid to upgrade my desktop.
 
Jamiron said:
Same problem, I don't have a backup... can I still fix this?
Click to expand...
Always do backups.
Your data is probably still there, even if not rightly accessible.

I'd recommend you better don't write (install) anything new to this disk, before backing it up (in its current state).
 
The data definitely seems to all be there, the question is just how to get access it again. Has anyone tried creating a new user to see if the old user and data is there?
 
This happened to me. All i did was create a new account and chose not to restore from anything (even though I was really worried) it turned out fine. I just logged out and my old account was there with all of my data. Then I deleted the account it for some reason forced me to make.
 
So I took the risk and created a dummy user. In the user folder I see my old user (the one I want to be using) but when I go to User & Groups in system pref, it doesn't show up.
 
parkds said:
So I took the risk and created a dummy user. In the user folder I see my old user (the one I want to be using) but when I go to User & Groups in system pref, it doesn't show up.
Click to expand...

Even greyed out in the "other users" section right below. At first I missed this but later found it.
 
Phew... everything is still there. I rebooted to bootcamp and saw that my old folders and apps were still there. After rebooting once more, I was able to sign into my old account. Apple really f*cked up on this one.
 
You were lucky ! I went on my bootcamp partition, saw the files but when I rebooted I kept having the install screens...

I should tried the dummy user... Now I'm in the middle of a TM restoration, hoping for the best.
 
Jamiron said:
Phew... everything is still there. I rebooted to bootcamp and saw that my old folders and apps were still there. After rebooting once more, I was able to sign into my old account. Apple really f*cked up on this one.
Click to expand...

I tried rebooting after creating a dummy account, didn't do the trick. The OS still doesn't see it as a user.
 
lwilliams said:
This is supposed to happen. It is a new OS. Don't be alarmed. All is good!
Click to expand...

All is not good when you're stupid not to make any backups and your whole livelihood depends on a 13 inch device.

----------
parkds said:
I tried rebooting after creating a dummy account, didn't do the trick. The OS still doesn't see it as a user.
Click to expand...

Do you have bootcamp (windows) installed?
 
Finally solved my issue. By creating a new user with the exact username (shortname) as the misbehaving account, it will ask you if you want to use the existing folder. That seems to have repaired the user folder and reenabled my existing user account.
 
parkds said:
I downloaded Mavericks from, the app store and ran the downloaded installer to perform the upgrade. Everything seemed to run normal. Other than confirming what drive to install to, I was never given any other options. After the computer restarted from installing Mavericks, it is behaving like I did a clean install and is asking me if I want to migrate my data from anywhere. Not sure what has happened and am very worried my data has been erased. I have not moved past the screen asking me where I want to migrate data from in case this is savable.

EDIT: In Disk Utility when I boot from the installer, it reports the correct amount of space being used on the disk (1.8TB)

Thanks for your help!
Click to expand...

I had the same issue. Also created a dummy user.

All you need to do is log out of the dummy account. Your old account will be on the login screen. Log into it, then delete the dummy account :)

All is still well :p
 
Happy for you guys. I should have tried this before running TM.

My MBP is back on tracks. Currently resyncing Dropbox and other things.

Will try again installing Mavericks In a few hours
 
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