Help Major Crisis

[01jamcon]

I've created an alias to my applications folder on my desktop.
Today, I inadvertantly selected a large number of files from the desktop and sent them to be deleted by Graveyard, (a pretty thorough trash can) INCLUDING my applications alias folder.

Now all the real apps have been deleted and I can't get none of them to open up. I realised what was going on half way through and force quit graveyard but it was too late and most of the standard apps including everything extra I've added to my Macbook over the last 11 months is gone.

Please tell me there is a way to get it back to normal, without re-installing from the boot cd's. Luckily my iTunes and iPhoto libraries still seem to be there, although I can't access them because the apps won't start. I'm backing them up to another hard drive now just in case.

 

[epochblue]

That's strange, deleting the alias shouldn't have deleted the folder to which it points....you sure you didn't accidentally throw in the actual Applications folder?

 

[01jamcon]

Absolutely.

I can't have, cause I was selecting a whole bunch of stuff from the desktop only and dragged it directly to the graveyard icon on the desktop as well.

And I thought aliases were safe as well, but i just tested it out now with other files (that I can afford to lose) and they got deleted as well. Is that a wider problem, or is it me not knowing the truth?

Also, should I try a restart to see if they reappear, or would that mean they're permanently lost?

 

[crackpip]

There are a couple of things I can think of off the top of my head. If its just some of the iApps and such, you can put in your boot CD's and there should be something like "Install Optional Items". This reinstalls iLife, X11, and some other things. If the missing items are more extensive, you could install osx onto an empty partition or external HD. Then drag and drop the applications from the one Applications folder to the other. I don't think there will be any permissions issues, and because none of the things installed into the /Library or /System directories have been deleted it should all work ok.

If you don't end up reinstalling, I'd recommend doing a clean install when Leopard comes out (which I usually recommend anyway).

For most things, it's not normal behavior to traverse aliases or symbolic links without explicitly setting a flag or option. I'd contact the developer with your issue, and suggest that they make it an option that has to be turned on.

crackpip

 

[01jamcon]

Looks like you're right and I'm going to do a clean re-install in a minute, actually I've wanted to do one for ages, but I didn't have the guts, or a reason to do one. (first time mac user)

Looks like you're correct, its a fault with graveyard and nothing else. when i use trash can to delete aliases, nothing happens to the original file. In future, I will save myself the hassle and just use the trash can, or something safer.

Shame I found this out the hard way.