HELP! MY GOD I NEED HELP!

[0098386]

oh god... bloody hell. somethings happened, i tried.. **** sorry about this im trembeling

right

i put my Tiger dvd in, booted up to reinstall Tiger. but it dosnt work, not enough free space. which is fair. so i boot back into my previous system only im back to square 1 kinda

default everything. my Home account name is the same (Jay) and ive only got 5gb free but ive seem to have lost everything!? im almost in tears ive got 1 whole years of uni work there, irreplacable files and everything. all hidden somewhere on my HD. i mean 55Gb just dosnt vanish does it?

what the bloody hell should i do?!!! ive spotlighted my work but nothings coming up!!!! oh help. PLEASE! im gonna cry here

please excuse my language too. but right im so scared

 

[ITASOR]

Ok first of all try to calm down a bit, by being so tight up, you'll probably to something to make it worse. (I know, easy for me to say, right?).

Did you try looking in the user's folder to see if you have any other users which it might have moved the files too?

Second, why the heck were you reintalling Tiger without backing up first?

 

[yellow]

Yes, calm down.. before I offer advice, I'm going to lecture you on the importance of backing up your data.

Everyone who considers their data critical, should back up. Be it to CD, DVD, hard drive, tape, whatever, you NEED to back up your data. And do it often! People seem to think computers are magical and nothing bad will ever happen to them. Computers are, in actuality, incredibly complex machines with an unbelievable array or pieces/parts that can fail catastrophically at any time. Back up. OFTEN. When you need it most, your computer will fail. Murphy's Law and all..

OK, end of lecture.

So, why were you inserting your Tiger DVD?
What events lead up to this?
What kind of Mac is this?

 

[0098386]

right... im a bit calmer. im also on my PC too. heh. hows that for irony.

my documents folder and movies and stuff are empty, apps has all my old apps still. clicking on them says that im not authenticated. so i click authenicate and nothing happens

secondly i was just going to overwrite Tiger. upgrade. but because it was greyed out and i had no room for an archive upgrade i just closed everything and booted back up into my normal account.

how can i change permissions and get authenticated for everything again? funny because before i tried networking my PB up and it kept saying on my PC that i needed to contact an admin. i should have seen this coming.

still... help!

 

[0098386]

sorry yea im running a 12" Powerbook rev D.

something did happen before whilst i used using Sharepoints. it said something about permissions changing? something about admin ID i think. i cant remember 100%.

 

[0098386]

clicking on Documents in finder brings up a window saying "The folder "documents" could not be opened because you do not have sufficient access privileges"

theres a way to fix this right?

 

[yellow]

it said something about permissions changing? something about admin ID i think. i cant remember 100%.

Error messages are usually pretty important.

Anyway.. did you happen to try and change the name of your home directory in the Finder or something?

 

[0098386]

i changed something in Sharepoints, i pressed Update something and something my admin account changed. im trying to get sharepoints working again so i can tell you exactly what i did. damn i wish i could remember!

 

[ITASOR]

Open Disk Utility-->and Repair Permissions. Good luck!

 

[0098386]

found it! i pressed 'Get Next UID' under the users & public shares section in SharePoints. it says 501 for Jay now, which i thought it said last time?

should i change that to 500 then?

 

[telecomm]

Someone with a better knowledge of terminal commands might also be of use (sorry, I'm not that guy). Anyway, there's a way to change permissions from the command line. Good luck!

 

[0098386]

if its important; i can see my Apps folder and my Music ones with no problem. just that i cant use 50% of the apps. even desktop is saying no privileges.

so my files still do exist? and are they retreavable?

 

[yellow]

501 is the default UID for the very first user created on Mac OS X.

Are you logged in as another user currently, or the same (broken) user?

If you are able, please create a new admin user to work from, we will then use the Terminal to try and fix your problem.

Basically, log in as another user, open Terminal, type:

sudo chown -R shortusername:admin /Users/shortusername

Replacing "shortusername" with the short user name of your broken user. You will be asked for your admin password.

After that, log out and log back in as your broken user, all should be normal again, though I'm not sure what it'll do about your ~/Library.

 

[0098386]

i created a 2nd admin so i can fix this, i changed my first account (Jay) back to 501. im in there now. what should i do with Terminal?

 

[yellow]

Basically, log in as another user, open Terminal, type:

sudo chown -R shortusername:admin /Users/shortusername

Replacing (both instances of) "shortusername" with the short user name of your broken user. You will be asked for your admin password.

After that, log out and log back in as your broken user, all should be normal again, though I'm not sure what it'll do about your ~/Library.

 

[0098386]

oh GOD THANK YOU!

well... umm.. you wouldnt feel bad if i messed around with some numbers and fixed it myself? i just restarted after changing that UID to 501 instead of just logging on and off like i was doing.

but thanks guys so much! for at least trying to help hey if your ever in manchester i owe you a pint, or mineral water if you dont drink.

hah. emotional rollercoaster. you'd probably understand my almost crying when i say that today i just finished all my uni work, all typed up and everything. was in a rush today. been typing from 11am to 8pm -_-

thanks again!

 

[yellow]

Get yourself a back up solution.

 

[fitinferno]

Get yourself a back up solution.

I second this. Seeing as your in England...I'd totally suggest taking advantage of Apple's eyetv & hd offer...great deal for that piece of kit and 160 beautiful gbs with which to back up your system and save a few tv recordings