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Dropped pictures to desktop, can't access anything!

J

jacob2342

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 31, 2008
20
0
I'm running a macbook pro with tiger OSX. I wanted to transfer a folder of pictures into another one (around 3000 pictures, I'm not very organized and want to start) so I selected all the pictures and went to drag them into a new folder. I missed at put them to the desktop...
My desktop started rapidly filling up with pictures and even when I clicked the X to stop the transfer it kept going. My computer froze up and I powered it down. Once I turned it back on my desktop stayed blank. No Mac harddrive, no pictures, it's running really slowly and I cannot click anything from the top bar (finder, file, folder etc...)
I clicked the shortcut to go to change the desktop background and when I highlight the folder "desktop" all of my pictures show up in a massive list and I can change my desktop background to any one of them!
So my question here is is there any way I can restore my computer to a day ago (like on a pc) so I can go back and try again?
Or, since I am seeing them in this folder and its showing they are on my desktop (even though I can't see them) is there a shortcut I can press to open up my harddrive so I can see all of the files apparently on the desktop and then just transfer them into a folder?
All I can do at this point is run applications from my dock and I can't access anything! Please help!
thanks
 
Apple didnt implement any kind of system restore-like function until Leopard. You should be able to move them to a new folder via the terminal in the installation disc if you know how.
 
mhm just a suggestion:

1) open finder and navigate to desktop (it is in your home folder)
2) click the button that makes the files to show in a list
3) press cmd+a (cmd is the apple button). This will select every single file
4) assuming those pictures are already saved in the folder from which you tried to copy them, put them to the trash by pressing cmd+backspace or by right-clicking and choosing move to trash. If you got any files in your desktop, exept those pictures, you can hold cmd and click those files, they will be de-selected.

i hope this helped
 
sOwL said:
mhm just a suggestion:

1) open finder and navigate to desktop (it is in your home folder)
2) click the button that makes the files to show in a list
3) press cmd+a (cmd is the apple button). This will select every single file
4) assuming those pictures are already saved in the folder from which you tried to copy them, put them to the trash by pressing cmd+backspace or by right-clicking and choosing move to trash. If you got any files in your desktop, exept those pictures, you can hold cmd and click those files, they will be de-selected.

i hope this helped
Click to expand...



Finder won't open. The commands to open my applications folder, harddrive etc...won't open them either. In that desktop background area where I can search for folders to pick a picture from the folder that the pics were in is completely empty. All of them show as being in the desktop folder which I cannot do a shortcut to (and my harddrive is missing from my desktop)
Oh and I can't open my recycle bin....wtf?
 
The Terminal is kind of like the Command Prompt of windows.
Anyway, its not noob-friendly, but we can get though this :D
What you need to do is grab the install disc that came with your mac and boot from it. When you get to a point when you can choose the Utilities menu from the top, go ahead and open up Terminal from that menu.

1) The first thing we need to do is find out what the name of your hdd is. If you know it, skip this step. type "cd /Volumes" This takes the terminal to the part that shows all the hdd's on your computer. Type "ls" and hit enter. It houls give you a list of hdd's. For me, my hdd is named LEOPARD, so im going to use that name from now on, but you need to substitute your own hdd's name.

2) Now that we know what drive to go to we can get to your desktop folder.
Type:
cd /Volumes/LEOPARD/Users/**Your user name**/Desktop
and hit return. If your hdd name has a space in it you will need to do it a bit differently. Lets say your hdd is named "OS X" The Terminal will see the space as the end of the command and we dont want that, so to let it know that we want a space there we would type it like this:
cd /Volumes/OS\ X/Users/**Your user name**/Desktop
Note the "\" before the space, this tells terminal that the space is part of the name. If your drive is just one word though you need not worry about that.

3) Now that we are in your desktop folder, lets do an "ls" again just for kicks. If all went well you should have a huge flippin list of pictures show up.
Now we want to make a new folder on the desktop which we will then move all the pics into. Type "mkdir Pics" This will make a folder on your desktop called "Pics" :D

4) The last step is to move the pics into that new folder. if they are all one format you will have it very easy. Type "mv *.jpg Pics" This moves all jpg files to the Pics folder. If your pics are a different format like TIFF or Raw you need to change the "*.jpg" into whatever you have. You can now quit Terminal, quit the install dvd, and reboot. If all went well you should have a new folder on your desktop with the pics in it.
 
jacob2342 said:
Finder won't open. The commands to open my applications folder, harddrive etc...won't open them either. In that desktop background area where I can search for folders to pick a picture from the folder that the pics were in is completely empty. All of them show as being in the desktop folder which I cannot do a shortcut to (and my harddrive is missing from my desktop)
Oh and I can't open my recycle bin....wtf?
Click to expand...

your system might be unresponsive because its trying to load all those pictures, which are, well, many :) I dont think its a serious problem. Ok so, do you see the files in your desktop?
 
NoSmokingBandit said:
The Terminal is kind of like the Command Prompt of windows.
Anyway, its not noob-friendly, but we can get though this :D
What you need to do is grab the install disc that came with your mac and boot from it. When you get to a point when you can choose the Utilities menu from the top, go ahead and open up Terminal from that menu.

1) The first thing we need to do is find out what the name of your hdd is. If you know it, skip this step. type "cd /Volumes" This takes the terminal to the part that shows all the hdd's on your computer. Type "ls" and hit enter. It houls give you a list of hdd's. For me, my hdd is named LEOPARD, so im going to use that name from now on, but you need to substitute your own hdd's name.

2) Now that we know what drive to go to we can get to your desktop folder.
Type:
cd /Volumes/LEOPARD/Users/**Your user name**/Desktop
and hit return. If your hdd name has a space in it you will need to do it a bit differently. Lets say your hdd is named "OS X" The Terminal will see the space as the end of the command and we dont want that, so to let it know that we want a space there we would type it like this:
cd /Volumes/OS\ X/Users/**Your user name**/Desktop
Note the "\" before the space, this tells terminal that the space is part of the name. If your drive is just one word though you need not worry about that.

3) Now that we are in your desktop folder, lets do an "ls" again just for kicks. If all went well you should have a huge flippin list of pictures show up.
Now we want to make a new folder on the desktop which we will then move all the pics into. Type "mkdir Pics" This will make a folder on your desktop called "Pics" :D

4) The last step is to move the pics into that new folder. if they are all one format you will have it very easy. Type "mv *.jpg Pics" This moves all jpg files to the Pics folder. If your pics are a different format like TIFF or Raw you need to change the "*.jpg" into whatever you have. You can now quit Terminal, quit the install dvd, and reboot. If all went well you should have a new folder on your desktop with the pics in it.
Click to expand...

well, i just hope he can run terminal :(

edit: oops, you told him to use the install dvd, i need some sleep :) Just to add: To boot from the dvd, hold "c" during boot until you hear some sort of sound
 
sOwL said:
your system might be unresponsive because its trying to load all those pictures, which are, well, many :) I dont think its a serious problem. Ok so, do you see the files in your desktop?
Click to expand...

my desktop is completely empty. I cant open anything except the items in my dock. The only way I know they are on the desktop somehow is because they come up in the desktop folder options to set a background image when i do the system preferences command (because i cant click there directly at the top)
 
jacob2342 said:
my desktop is completely empty. I cant open anything except the items in my dock. The only way I know they are on the desktop somehow is because they come up in the desktop folder options to set a background image when i do the system preferences command (because i cant click there directly at the top)
Click to expand...

mhm so that means you can right click. NoSmokingBandit explained very nicelly on how to do it through the terminal, although i think you can do it without having to boot from the dvd if u can right click. Have you tried pressing cmd+a directly at your desktop? although, im not sure what would happen if you did that and then hit cmd+backspace, that might eject your disks, which is bad. Now that i think of it, try what NoSmokingBandit told you, it should work like a charm.
 
sOwL said:
mhm so that means you can right click. NoSmokingBandit explained very nicelly on how to do it through the terminal, although i think you can do it without having to boot from the dvd if u can right click. Have you tried pressing cmd+a directly at your desktop? although, im not sure what would happen if you did that and then hit cmd+backspace, that might eject your disks, which is bad. Now that i think of it, try what NoSmokingBandit told you, it should work like a charm.
Click to expand...

I can't right click. cmd+a doesn't do anything. I'm trying to figure out what he told me now, kind of hard for a noob but I found my discs and am going to give it a try...
 
The problem is that Finder cant handle that many pics on the desktop so it craps out on you. Without finder there is really no way to move files other than the install disc.

Unless....
Do you have another mac around? If so, you could put yours into "target disc mode" which essentially turns the whole thing into an external firewire harddrive. You could use another mac to move those files around, then reboot back into tiger.
 
jacob2342 said:
I can't right click. cmd+a doesn't do anything. I'm trying to figure out what he told me now, kind of hard for a noob but I found my discs and am going to give it a try...
Click to expand...

it would help if you printed his post. dont forget to boot from dvd hold "c" untill you hear some sort of beep. Also, when using "mv *.jpg Pics" command, you can use it as many times for as many types of images files you have. Just change the extension, like "mv *.gif Pics", "mv *.png Pics", etc.
 
NoSmokingBandit said:
The problem is that Finder cant handle that many pics on the desktop so it craps out on you. Without finder there is really no way to move files other than the install disc.

Unless....
Do you have another mac around? If so, you could put yours into "target disc mode" which essentially turns the whole thing into an external firewire harddrive. You could use another mac to move those files around, then reboot back into tiger.
Click to expand...

no mac around besides this one, just my pc. i put in the install disc but nothing is happening, the box pops up that says mac os x install disc 1 but there isnt anything in the box...
 
jacob2342 said:
no mac around besides this one, just my pc. i put in the install disc but nothing is happening, the box pops up that says mac os x install disc 1 but there isnt anything in the box...
Click to expand...

lol actually forget the thing about printing his post. ofc your viewing the forum frm another computer, silly me. Strange, did u hold the "c" button?

edit: you need to reboot your mac first, and then hold the c button
 
sOwL said:
lol actually forget the thing about printing his post. ofc your viewing the forum frm another computer, silly me. Strange, did u hold the "c" button?

edit: you need to reboot your mac first, and then hold the c button
Click to expand...

yeah now its the screen giving me the option for installation, it says select a destiunation volume to install the mac os software. in the box at the bottom it says you cannot install mac os x on this volume without changing your install settings. click options to change settings. in options it has a checked box that says archive and install...
 
ignore it, you dont want to install osx. In the menubar, click utilities, then terminal, then follow NoSmokingBandit's guide
 
sOwL said:
well, i just hope he can run terminal :(

edit: oops, you told him to use the install dvd, i need some sleep :) Just to add: To boot from the dvd, hold "c" during boot until you hear some sort of sound
Click to expand...

i typed that in and it says no such directory....:mad:
 
sOwL said:
wrong quote i suppose? anyway, do you know the name of your hd? if so, tell it to me so i tell you what to type in the terminal
Click to expand...

I never named it, when it was on my desktop it was just macintosh hd if i remember correctly
 
if it is the default "Macintosh HD" it would be:
cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Users/yourUserName/Desktop
if you username has spaces it should be: your\ username. For each space, use "\ "
 
sOwL said:
if it is the default "Macintosh HD" it would be:
cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Users/yourUserName/Desktop
if you username has spaces it should be: your\ username. For each space, use "\ "
Click to expand...

i keep getting "-bash-2.05b# there is no such file or directory"
 
what is your username? also, type cd /Volumes and check if your disk is named as "Macintosh HD" or anything else

edit: oh and then, type "ls"
 
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