deleted ETC file and cant boot, asking for help pls pls pls

[suegannett]

hi all! you won't believe I've been using a mac for close to 20 yrs now and just did the stupidest thing to date, ugh. I bought an imac on ebay and started to clean etc and deleted a file I had never seen before named etc. when i rebooted i get black screen with error etc/master/.psswd no such file or directory. ---- i have read many previous posts and spent the last 3 hrs going thru the steps that worked for others but no luck; things I've tried 1) boot from osX 10.4.11 CD - doesn't work (can't boot from any orig install disks that do work on my other macs. tried a bunch of unix commands but keep getting file does not exist. My files are in the trash, I did not empty trash.
Appreciate any help or ideas from my fellow mac lovers. thanks so much, Sue

 

[Weaselboy]

What year model is the Mac and what OS version is on it?

If it is on Lion 10.7 or better you can just command-r boot to the recovery partition and resinstall the OS overtop of itself. You will need to AppleID used to purchase the OS version though.

 

[suegannett]

Mac OSX 10.4.11 -- imac duo core 2.4 ghz processor -- g5 -- yr approx. 2003 -- 2 gb ram - bought on ebay so no apple id --

 

[Weaselboy]

Mac OSX 10.4.11 -- imac duo core 2.4 ghz processor -- g5 -- yr approx. 2003 -- 2 gb ram - bought on ebay so no apple id --

Ackk... AppleID won't matter there since it won't run any of the OS versions from the App Store. The key I think is going to be to reinstall the OS without erasing. I don't get why it won't boot from your 10.4 CD though? You have maybe another optical drive to try?

 

[DeltaMac]

Even if you have files still in the trash - if you don't know exactly where those files came from, there's not much you can do except reinstall OS X.
A 10.4 installer that "works on my other Macs" has to be exactly the same model Mac, if the DVD is grey - or SHOULD install if your DVD is a black disk.
(Grey DVD comes originally with a specific Mac, and will not install on other Mac models. A black-labelled DVD will be Apple's commercial DVD, which will install on any Mac that supports that OS X version, not just one model.)
Maybe you also have a Leopard installer (for OS X 10.5). That newer OS X may be a better fit for an iMac G5, and will be a version that has more versatility on an older Mac, to give you access to more software.

 

[Ichkamo]

Wait, you can access the Shell????? If you do man it's easy!!
cd /Users/{your username}/.Trash/ #going in your trash
sudo mv -R etc/ / #moving etc/ back to root where it belongs
Restart #this is not a command, just restart your computer.
IF! you can't get back you etc/ folder, then extract it from your install cd or any disk image file of the same OS version, using I don't know... Pacifist for example
Hope I helped