Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Hard Drive Overload, Becoming non-operational.

T

theGAPkid

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 13, 2007
209
0
UK
Hi Everyone - Another Problem :(

I inadvertently managed to go and stupidly start copying 3000+ images from iPhoto to my desktop today, obviously causing the system to crash. I thought that upon start up, my computer would have cancelled the operation and everything would be back to normal. No . . .

Everytime I click on the desktop, a new icon appears, presumably with the "next" image location from my previous error. The computer has become extremeley slow, and all my desktop icons / folders that were there previous, have now disappeared. I fear that I may end up losing everything as clicking on stuff just doesn't work. Any idea on how to stop this? I have relaunched the Finder and the computer numerous times, but the condition of my laptop seems to be deteriorating!
 
I can run programs, but it takes a matter of minutes for each of them to load.

Oh dear :(
 
theGAPkid said:
Hi Everyone - Another Problem :(

I inadvertently managed to go and stupidly start copying 3000+ images from iPhoto to my desktop today, obviously causing the system to crash. I thought that upon start up, my computer would have cancelled the operation and everything would be back to normal. No . . .

Everytime I click on the desktop, a new icon appears, presumably with the "next" image location from my previous error. The computer has become extremeley slow, and all my desktop icons / folders that were there previous, have now disappeared. I fear that I may end up losing everything as clicking on stuff just doesn't work. Any idea on how to stop this? I have relaunched the Finder and the computer numerous times, but the condition of my laptop seems to be deteriorating!
Click to expand...

"obviously"? Surely not? Maybe as someone with a Windows background I'm missing something but isn't the desktop just another folder? So why would copying stuff from one folder to another cause the OS to crash? Slow down yes, but crash is a different matter.

Anyway, why not start it up again and just leave it to finish copying, then delete the images ? Let it run overnight at least to see what happens.
 
Im not sure what that was supposed to do.
It doesn't seemed to have changed anything. Whenever I try to click on the HD icon, it just kind of 'pastes' another file / sometimes folder there over the top. Im presuming its one of the photos. :confused:

I left the computer running all night, and it hasn't done anything
 
I might've sorted it (kinda)

rm ~/Desktop/*.jpg

I did it, and the majority of the files went away, though others were there.
I changed the command to

rm ~/Desktop/*.JPG
rm ~/Desktop/*.MOV etc,

and other unwanted files went away. What does the command do? Delete them?

So I think Im back to normal now! Thanks so much for your help.
 
theGAPkid said:
I might've sorted it (kinda)

rm ~/Desktop/*.jpg

I did it, and the majority of the files went away, though others were there.
I changed the command to

rm ~/Desktop/*.JPG
rm ~/Desktop/*.MOV etc,

and other unwanted files went away. What does the command do? Delete them?

So I think Im back to normal now! Thanks so much for your help.
Click to expand...

rm - remove, * is a wildcard (will match any filename). The command doesn't ask 'are you sure' (in certain places it asks for permission), so be careful, ESPECIALLY with the ' * '.

I hope you didn't have anything particularly important on your desktop. Do you have Time Machine set up?

But glad you got everything worked out :D
 
Thanks for the elucidation – I was too lazy. :)

If you want to find out more about any UNIX command, you can run

man rm

or whatever. Very handy! Some of the commands have a daunting number of flags, though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back