I really messed something up

[rglenn23]

So this saga began when my mother recently inherited my old Macbook Pro (circa 2011 model year). I got it set up with an account that had her name on it and everything, but the only thing that still had my name on it was the "home" folder. My mom is pretty tech savvy, but having my name on the "home" folder kept confusing her when she went to look for her documents and such.

Anyway, I found and followed this tutorial (http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201548.

But it did not work. Then I started piddling around with the settings looking for another way to fix it on my own (this is, understandably, where our story takes a turn for the worse because I am no computer wizard).

Then I encountered the window below in "users and groups" in system preferences.

At first I ignored this warning, thinking, "Oh, it's a Mac. There's no way I could break a Mac. What's the worst that could happen?" (You can probably tell where this story is going by now).

After typing in the boxes and switching the settings, I changed my mind and decided to heed the giant red lettered warning at the top of the window. However, the computer started rebooting and made this change anyway. I'm honestly not sure what happened at this point. I was sure I clicked "cancel" but I must have hit "ok" instead. Whether I did it or the computer decided I should do it, I clicked ok on the above window after changing everything from my name to my mother's name.

And this brings us to the current situation. Now, I can't seem to access anything from her account...files, apps, anything. I'm getting all kinds of weird error messages like the following...

Also this, though it hasn't popped up in the few minutes I've been sitting here typing this out.

ETA:
Here are the current "users." The one highlighted in blue with the fortune cookie icon is the administrator account I added for the purposes of the tutorial I linked to. The one with the pink flower icon is the original account that I was trying to rectify. Don't know if this is helpful info or not, but it is part of this horrible domino effect.

Any ideas?

 

[snorkelman]

Any ideas?

account name should match users home directory which is currently /Users/lizglenn

you have rachelmglenn for the account name, have you tried changing account name to lizglenn

not sure if thats something you'll be able to do in current state its got into though..

 

[rglenn23]

Ok. I tried changing all that info in the first image back to what it was originally before I started messing around. The computer rebooted and now I'm not getting those weird error messages, but nothing is the same on the home page, etc. It's basically like it went back to factory defaults.

I switched to the administrator account I created for the tutorial, and now that's where all the error messages are popping up. ???

I guess I could just delete the account I created for the tutorial and cut my losses. All she had on here was a handful of word documents (which I had the foresight to put on a flash drive before I started all this business).

 

[mtasquared]

What might work is signing in as a "root user". The root user is not recommended to be used lightly because it has access to everything and every account on your computer. Thus the possibility to royally screw up your Mac. But if I had this problem that is what I would try.

Read about how to do it here: http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT1528

 

[rglenn23]

What might work is signing in as a "root user". The root user is not recommended to be used lightly because it has access to everything and every account on your computer. Thus the possibility to royally screw up your Mac. But if I had this problem that is what I would try.

Read about how to do it here: http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT1528

Hmm. That seems beyond my level of expertise. If I got it screwed up just by doing something small I don't think I want to go messing around with stuff like that...

 

[mtasquared]

Well the mistake you can make as a root user is delete system files or run usually forbidden commands and if mistaken destroy your OS. Yeah maybe don't do it. In that mode, though, I think you would be able to access any folder or any file on the machine. I would take it to Apple.

 

[rglenn23]

Yeah I've done a lot of online research to no avail and that seems like my safest bet at this point. I was just trying to save myself a trip to the Apple store + the mall at this time of year (*shudder*). Thanks for all the suggestions though!

 

[snorkelman]

Yep might be safer in this case if you can drop it into a store

Just in case theres still something kinda obvious, you could list the current details for the two accounts, since you made your latest changes?

e.g. for the box i have here its as follows:

Account name stevenc
Home directory /Users/stevenc

and current contents of your User folder

on my box it's

Guest folder
Shared folder
stevenc folder (this is the account I'm logged into so is the one with the house icon)

 

[mtasquared]

Another possibility is to repair permissions, which you do from the disk utility but now I'm not recommending other than heading to Apple store straight away. Best of luck to you.

 

[Weaselboy]

I guess I could just delete the account I created for the tutorial and cut my losses. All she had on here was a handful of word documents (which I had the foresight to put on a flash drive before I started all this business).

That being the case, sounds like the existing accounts can go bye bye then yes?

If so, here is what I would do. Add a new admin account and call it temp or whatever. Restart and login to that temp account. From that account delete the other two accounts. Now add back the real Liz Glenn account you want. Then logout of temp and login to Liz Glenn and delete the temp account.

Then just copy her documents back in there.