Messed up with permissions!

[viperguy]

So, just now, for some unknown stupid reason, I *might* have deleted a permission called "system". Right after that, my Macbook froze and, after a force shutdown, when I turn it on, I only get the Apple symbol on the white screen and that loading circle below it. Sigh...

Tried reseting PRAM and Safe Boot, but none worked. Best of all, I lost my Snow Leopard Disk, so I tried to use Disk Utillity booting from my old Leopard disk and it didn't work ='(

Right now I'm trying to find my Snow Leopard disk to try to run Disk Utility and repair those permissions, but if anyone has any other thing in mind I can try please post here!

All I know is that I'm sure it's not a hardware problem, so I think I might be able to at least retrieve my files...

Ps.: I'm posting from my PC

 

[UpQuark]

So, just now, for some unknown stupid reason, I *might* have deleted a permission called "system". Right after that, my Macbook froze and, after a force shutdown, when I turn it on, I only get the Apple symbol on the white screen and that loading circle below it. Sigh...

Tried reseting PRAM and Safe Boot, but none worked. Best of all, I lost my Snow Leopard Disk, so I tried to use Disk Utillity booting from my old Leopard disk and it didn't work ='(

Right now I'm trying to find my Snow Leopard disk to try to run Disk Utility and repair those permissions, but if anyone has any other thing in mind I can try please post here!

All I know is that I'm sure it's not a hardware problem, so I think I might be able to at least retrieve my files...


Ps.: I'm posting from my PC

It isn't a hardware issue.. but system is a user, and as such, has certain rights to access and use different files as your system.

Booting in to your system disk and then do a permission repair from the disk utility should do the trick... The issue is the version - which is why the leopard didn't work.

You could try to boot Target Disk Mode... (hold the T down during reboot) this will allow you to access the hard drive via a firewire cable...

 

[viperguy]

Yey!
Fixed it!
Running repair permissions with the Snow Leopard also didn`t work, so I had to install OSX again to repair it. Best of all, it didn`t delete my files so I`m ok :>

Btw, now that the problem is solved, here`s what I really wanted to do: when I join Wifi networks, I don`t know what files are and aren`t shared, so when I messed up with the permissions what I was trying to do I to only allow computers that I know/trust to be able to access any of my files (like my home desktop). I`m afraid to join public networks knowing that probably anyone can read what`s on my Mac.

So how do I do that?

Thanks to all that helped :>

 

[Consultant]

No files are shared by default on OS X. This isn't the insecure Windows that shares everything with the world.

Is it hard to find:
System Preferences / Sharing / File Sharing

 

[UpQuark]

No files are shared by default on OS X. This isn't the insecure Windows that shares everything with the world.

Is it hard to find:
System Preferences / Sharing / File Sharing

There are no folders shared by default - except for Public. HOWEVER, when you start iTunes or iPHoto, make sure you do NOT share those libraries. iTunes-->preferences. iPhoto-->preferences. I chuckle when I get to a hotel and you can see all the iTunes sharing going on..and iPHoto too..

 

[viperguy]

There are no folders shared by default - except for Public. HOWEVER, when you start iTunes or iPHoto, make sure you do NOT share those libraries. iTunes-->preferences. iPhoto-->preferences. I chuckle when I get to a hotel and you can see all the iTunes sharing going on..and iPHoto too..

That is a good point UpQuark, thanks for the tip!!
Good to know only public is shared.
Thank you all again!