Panther ate my Powerbook.

[livingfortoday]

Okay, given the recent upsurge in problems I've been having with this Powerbook, I'm really tempted to buy a new one, and burn this one in order to kill the ghouls inside.

Here's my most recent problem. The computer was running rather slow, and I was getting that beachball a bunch, so I figured I'd reboot and things would run smoother. Well, on rebooting Palm Desktop had some error, and the computer just froze, so I had to force it to shut down and then reboot. Everything went ok, until I logged on to my account. For some reason, it had completely reset itself to how it looks just when you freshly install the system. Nothing on the desktop, Dock reset and everything. None of my files are anywhere to be found on the hard drive, but the space that is allocated to them is still there. In other words, there are 6 or 7 GB unaccounted for, hidden somewhere. Safari has reset itself, and lost all my bookmarks and such. Everything I've opened up has taken me through the setup guides that you get when you first install the system.

What's going on? I've tried repairing permissions, but that hasn't helped. I have File Vault on right now, and am tempted to turn that off, but it'll take a while, and I kinda wanted to work on my files right now... has this happened to any one before? Help!

Oh, and I'm running OS 10.3.9, if that helps.

 

[eva01]

Use omni disksweeper to find where the files are hidden. And try to create another user and see if you get a bunch of bugs still while in the other account.

 

[livingfortoday]

OK, I'm gonna try and find discsweeper, and give that a shot. Just a quick note. I did finally try to turn off FileVault, and it told me it had encountered an error and couldn't do it. I restarted, and tried again, and the same message popped up. Could it be that the .sparseimage file just got corrupted somehow, and my computer can't access any of my files now?

Edit: Ok, I tried Disksweeper, and it can't find any of the files, save for the big 7.9GB .sparseimage file that is apparently my File vault protected Home folder. Which I can also not get at (it says there is no disc to mount, and won't open). Uh... is there anything I can do to get at these files?

 

[admford]

Ahhh.... I just noticed something that might be helpfull for you in Apple's Support site.

Mac OS X 10.3, 10.4: FileVault - How to verify or repair a home directory image

This should help you quite nicely

 

[livingfortoday]

Ahhh.... I just noticed something that might be helpfull for you in Apple's Support site.

Mac OS X 10.3, 10.4: FileVault - How to verify or repair a home directory image

This should help you quite nicely

Dang. I wish I had internet access at home, or I could have fixed my problem a lot sooner with your help! As is, i finally found that same page, only it took me a loooot longer. I even wrote up a post to put up about it... so here goes:

Okay, after hours of tinkering, I fixed my problem and disabled FileVault. It seems to have some conflict with the Palm Desktop, so I won't turn it back on until i can figure out what it's problem is, but here's a little guide of what it took to fix it in case someone else has similar problems. I found most of this on Apple's support site (I had been looking for "File vault", but I guess you have to enter it as one word to get any real results (ie "FileVault").

First I clicked on the .sparseimage file itself, and did "Get Info" and unlocked it so that I could read and write to it. Then I opened Disk Utility, and dragged and dropped the file into the left-hand side there and clicked "Repair Disk". (Apple recommended creating a new account for this, but I found it wouldn't let me actually repair the image, just verify it from the other account. Seeing as I was in my primary account still, just not accessing the Home folder for some reason, this worked.) That did it. When I logged out and logged back in, it started up normally, and I was able to get all my files back. I then turned off FileVault.

I lost a full days worth of work with this problem, but at least I still have all my information - I was on the verge of doing a reformat and clean reinstall of Panther. I hope this little guide helps anyone who encounters the same problems.

Thanks to everyone who helped me out!