Easy Question

[wrxguy]

My Father just purchased a new MacBook and I am helping give him the run down on the basics of Mac's...Then I came up on a problem that I couldn't resolve and I felt real dumb for not knowing hahaha...ok heres the deal

While messing with his iTunes library he accidentally deleted his whole itunes libary and sent it to the trash. So he selected all in the trash, pulled it out and put it on the desktop, as you can imagine this led to hundreds of icons on the screen including ones stacked on the HardDrive.

So he highlighted everything and accidnetally included the Hard Drive.
He started importing and noticed that it was importing random sounds from the OS..things like beeps, and whirs and stuff.

So what I wanted to know was how to go in the trash and put back all those files.

While typing this I think that I may have came up on something, and that was that all those beeps and stuff got copied to itunes so that if they were deleted out of the trash then they would still be on the HD for the comp to use and things.

Please help!!

thanks in advance

 

[killerrobot]

If you delete them out of the iTunes library they will still be on the harddrive because it's just deleting the copy it made in the library folder, but I don't know of any easy way of selecting them all and deleting them all from the iTunes library at once.

 

[mkrishnan]

Wow... that's the biggest cluster---- I've heard of in a long time.

You two have to slow down and stop compounding one screw-up with another.

What I would do is make a folder somewhere, restore everything in the trashcan into the folder, and then spotlight the folder for the extensions (or possibly for "iTunes") -- i.e. .m4a or .mp3.... but not for kind:music because that will get all the other random sound files. Use this to find all the music files, and then you can select all (while it's just music files) and drag them to the iTunes dock icon.

Quarantine the folder while you're unsure if it still contains important stuff, then delete it when you're ready.

Although I'd also consider re-installing the OS, since God knows what you've moved around or deleted by now.

 

[wrxguy]

Wow... that's the biggest cluster---- I've heard of in a long time.

You two have to slow down and stop compounding one screw-up with another.

What I would do is make a folder somewhere, restore everything in the trashcan into the folder, and then spotlight the folder for the extensions (or possibly for "iTunes") -- i.e. .m4a or .mp3.... but not for kind:music because that will get all the other random sound files. Use this to find all the music files, and then you can select all (while it's just music files) and drag them to the iTunes dock icon.

Quarantine the folder while you're unsure if it still contains important stuff, then delete it when you're ready.

Although I'd also consider re-installing the OS, since God knows what you've moved around or deleted by now.

hahah thanks for the quick responses!
I am going to do the quartine and see how that works...luckily, the trash has NEVER been taken out since the comp was purchased, its only about 2 weeks old. There are no REAL important files but things like I said, the beeps, and sounds and stuff....

Thank you again for the quick responses and I will get back to you and let you know how it all came out.

I just got to his hotel room about an hour ago and this is what I was handed hahaha so I am doing my best!!

 

[Mac In School]

LOL. Wow. Your dad and my dad should get together and drink beer sometime. I mean, they both have computers with built-in cup holders, right?

 

[wrxguy]

LOL. Wow. Your dad and my dad should get together and drink beer sometime. I mean, they both have computers with built-in cup holders, right?

hahahaha I know right!!!

My Dad is pretty computer smart as far as PC's go but he made the Mac switch not even 2 weeks ago so he is just struggling getting used to the new OS but so far he loves it (go figure haha)

Thanks again for the help guys!