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My finder and all folders are gone

C

chrisgillick

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 26, 2009
12
0
Hello everyone,

long time mac user, first time poster, nice to meet you.
I apologize if this has already been answered, but I did a search and couldn't find my exact problem.

Here's what I did:
tried to export photos from iphoto into a folder named "photos" that was on my desktop so I could move it to my external hd and free up some space on my hd.
It kept giving me an error, so finally I said, "fine, just export to the desktop"
BIG mistake! It proceeded to export 1900+ photos onto the desktop and I thought, "Okay, no biggie, I'll just put them in the folder when it's done"

Problem:
after it finished it would freeze everytime I touched it.
I restarted and when it came back on my desktop was completely blank.

When I click on finder in the toolbar nothing happens.
I can do a search and find all my files and if I say "attach" in email I can see all those pics on my desktop, but I can't open any folders in the search thing so I can't move them or delete them.

I'm freaking out a bit bc it's getting late and I use this computer for work and I don't know what to do without my desktop items.

Any ideas?

I already tried importing back into iphoto - when I do this on my iphone it asks if I want to delete files on the original camera and I say yes and wala! but it didn't ask me that in this instance... any ideas?

Someone please please please help me?!?!

Oh and it won't open the external hd either.....

Thank you,
Christina Gillick
 
Are you saying you can actually log in, it's just Finder that's not showing you anything? What's likely happening is Finder is seizing up while trying to display all the items on your Desktop.

Can you open Terminal (Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal)? Actually, if Finder's not working for you, you probably can't. If you can, type:
Code: 
cd Desktop
ls

Otherwise, open Terminal from Spotlight (command-space, type Terminal) and type those commands.

If you do that, do you see all the photos listed? If that works, type:
Code: 
mkdir photos
mv *.jpg photos/.

That's assuming your photos are jpgs. Change that if they're some other type.
 
plinden said:
Are you saying you can actually log in, it's just Finder that's not showing you anything? What's likely happening is Finder is seizing up while trying to display all the items on your Desktop.

Can you open Terminal (Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal)? Actually, if Finder's not working for you, you probably can't. If you can, type:
Code: 
cd Desktop
ls

Otherwise, open Terminal from Spotlight (command-space, type Terminal) and type those commands.

If you do that, do you see all the photos listed? If that works, type:
Code: 
mkdir photos
mv *.jpg photos/.
Click to expand...


First of all, THANK YOU for responding! I really appreciate it!
I can get to the terminal - by going to the spotlight
but I'm not sure what I'm doing.... are you saying to type those words in terminal? do I put returns for each separate line? or type it all in one? It seems to do something... but not what I expect it to? and no, I don't see the pics listed?
Is it possible to simply delete them from terminal?

Oh and the photos are labeled: 1025091.jpg - 1025091911.jpg if that helps

Thanks again!
 
Yes, type them exactly as I did, separated by returns.

"cd Desktop" means "change directory to Desktop"

"ls" means "list files"

"mkdir photos" means "make new directory called photos" (if it already exists, it'll return an error message, that's ok, just ignore that).

"mv *.jpg photos/." means "move all files ending in .jpg to the directory photos"

By the way, it's likely not the best idea to enter some commands that some random guy on the internet told you to do, but anyone else reading this can confirm all those commands are harmless.

Edit: sorry, I didn't read all your message ... so there's nothing list in the Desktop directory? Is there anything listed?
 
plinden said:
Yes, type them exactly as I did, separated by returns.

"cd Desktop" means "change directory to Desktop"

"ls" means "list files"

"mkdir photos" means "make new directory called photos" (if it already exists, it'll return an error message, that's ok, just ignore that).

"mv *.jpg photos/." means "move all files ending in .jpg to the directory photos"

By the way, it's likely not the best idea to enter some commands that some random guy on the internet told you to do, but anyone else reading this can confirm all those commands are harmless.
Click to expand...

Thank you! I figured it was okay since everyone recommends this site. Plus I have everything backed up and my install disks sitting right here.... hope that would be enough to fix anything that could go horribly wrong.

If did seem to work okay - listed them all and then gave me that error.

What should I expect now? Everything is the same (finder still "gone, no files on desktop).....
 
I can see that everything is in the "photos" folder by going to "attach" in gmail and looking at everything, but the folder isn't showing up on the desktop... should I restart?
 
Ah, ok, so the move worked. You probably don't need to restart. Try typing in Terminal:
Code: 
killall Finder

Yes, that sounds scary but it's safe. All it is does is stop the Finder process, which will be immediately restarted. If that doesn't help, try logging out and back in.
 
Woooohoo!

I relaunched finder and it's there!! and my hd is back!!
Thank you soo much!!

Oh and I have a dumb question that no one can answer for me.... how do I update my OS? I have the Leopard disk in my hand, but have never been able to get my computer to use it. I've had it for months and months now....

Any ideas?
 
Glad to be of help. Click on the Apple logo at the top left and select "Software Update"
 
Sorry, I misunderstood. I didn't realize you wanted to upgrade to Leopard.

First of all, if I were you, I'd make a bootable backup of your disk. Upgrading OS X is usually painless, but it can go wrong. You'll need an external hard drive with enough free space to hold your current disk. Don't use a drive that you're using for data, since the backup process will delete all the data on it. (Although, from an earlier post, you don't seem concerned about reinstalling everything)

To make a back, download CarbonCopyCloner and follow the instructions for making a clone. Once you've done that, boot into the clone (boot the Mac with the external drive attached and pressing the Option key, and select the clone from the bootable disks shown) to make sure it works.

Only then, upgrade to Leopard. Put in the DVD and restart with the C key pressed. This will boot to the optical drive. It's been some time since I installed Leopard, but it's pretty easy - read and get familiar with http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/leopard_install-setup.pdf

Remember, if you have a working bootable clone, you can screw up and still be able to recover.
 
plinden said:
Sorry, I misunderstood. I didn't realize you wanted to upgrade to Leopard.

First of all, if I were you, I'd make a bootable backup of your disk. Upgrading OS X is usually painless, but it can go wrong. You'll need an external hard drive with enough free space to hold your current disk. Don't use a drive that you're using for data, since the backup process will delete all the data on it. (Although, from an earlier post, you don't seem concerned about reinstalling everything)

To make a back, download CarbonCopyCloner and follow the instructions for making a clone. Once you've done that, boot into the clone (boot the Mac with the external drive attached and pressing the Option key, and select the clone from the bootable disks shown) to make sure it works.

Only then, upgrade to Leopard. Put in the DVD and restart with the C key pressed. This will boot to the optical drive. It's been some time since I installed Leopard, but it's pretty easy - read and get familiar with http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/leopard_install-setup.pdf

Remember, if you have a working bootable clone, you can screw up and still be able to recover.
Click to expand...

Woo - I'm gonna have to tackle this tomorrow.
Thank you very much! Goodnight :)
 
chrisgillick said:
I have the Leopard disk in my hand, but have never been able to get my computer to use it. I've had it for months and months now....

Any ideas?
Click to expand...

If you haven't physically been able to install it, it requires an 866mhz (dual 800mhz won't work) processor and 512mb of RAM. I personally recommend at least a 1GHz processor and 1GB of RAM, and your experience should be dandy.

Before Tiger, those were just suggestions mainly, but since Leopard the disk will check your stats and refuse to install. There are ways around it, but I've used it on a dual 800mhz PowerMac and it wasnt fun.
 
madog said:
If you haven't physically been able to install it, it requires an 866mhz (dual 800mhz won't work) processor and 512mb of RAM. I personally recommend at least a 1GHz processor and 1GB of RAM, and your experience should be dandy.

Before Tiger, those were just suggestions mainly, but since Leopard the disk will check your stats and refuse to install. There are ways around it, but I've used it on a dual 800mhz PowerMac and it wasnt fun.
Click to expand...

Okay, I'm trying installing again.

I put the disk in and restart holding c and it just spits out the disk.
I put the disk in and wait and it spits in out.
I put the disk in and turn the computer off and as soon as I turn it on it spits out the disk.

This disks works fine on other people's computers... just not mine.

Here are my specs:

1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo
2 GB 533 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

Is that not good?
Anyone have any ideas?

Thank you!
 
plinden said:
If it's fine in other computers, it's likely your drive.

Unless ... is it a retail Leopard DVD? (ie. looks like http://www.instructables.com/files/deriv/F6Q/HXT0/FQPTT3LF/F6QHXT0FQPTT3LF.MEDIUM.jpg)

Or is it a gray one that came with another Mac?
Click to expand...

Yes, it's the retail disk. I got it to work finally!!! I got the cleaning disk recommended in another thread and some canned air.

But...

Now it gives me this error: "Mac OS X Install DVD" could not be used as a startup volume. Please make sure the Mac OS X installation disk is in the drive.

Any ideas?

Any help is great appreciated!!!
 
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