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Oh My God! EXTREME MALFUNCTION! Help, Help, Help!

Apple!Freak

Apple!Freak

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 11, 2005
545
0
East Coast
Okay, I don't know how, but my entire system just came back online. Maybe it was taking a nap, I don't know. Everything is back to normal, and I'm so happy that I really don't even know what to say right now. It's as though nothing even happened and the past hour and a half of my life didn't happen. Amazing.

Either way, thank you all very much for your help. And thank you especially Doctor Q, I think your advice helped solve this in one way or another, although it was most likely all of your guys help.

Thanks again. - Problem solved. - Now I can go to bed and sleep well (whereas I was planning on staying up all night to handle this).
 
Wait, hold on. I remember I just very recently (about an hour ago) changed the name of my home folder. Did this cause the major malfunction? I tried to change it back but it says the name is already taken!?!

Is all hope lost, or can this be resurrected?
 
You renamed your Home Folder! Uh oh.
There's no other folder in your Users folder? what about the Trash? Anything there? Ok, I would have to say reset your PRAM (P-R-option-control-command all at startup) and repair permissions (basic things). I don't know exactly what to do, but the Nano is unlikely the cause.
 
you cant rename the home folder ! everything about you user is based on your home folder. try going into the user folder via the hd to see if your old home folder name is in there. When you buy a new mac it even tells you the name of your home folder is permanent.
 
GimmeSlack12 said:
Ok, I would have to say reset your PRAM (P-R-option-control-command all at startup)
Click to expand...

Gee, what a brillant suggestion. Now I'm screwed even more than I was before. My iMac now restarted as though I just started it up for the first time. My $1,000 in iTunes music is gone, e-mail gone, every setting I ever made gone, everything gone.

Someone grab me a gun. I'm going to shoot myself.
 
Hmmm...

Yeah, it's not the nano...

You SURE that there are no other users on your hard drive?
 
What happens if you try to change your Home folder's name back to what it was original? I figure you've got nothing to lose so you may as well try. Good luck. :)
 
You spent $1,000 on iTunes and didn't back it up?!? Yup and I'm the brilliant one. Sorry man, but I don't know how resetting the PRAM did that?!? It isn't a restore of the computer, it is just a default reset mainly for your Video. I have never heard of it resetting the entire machine.
Don't get mad at me. You're the one that renamed your home folder.
 
mad jew said:
What happens if you try to change your Home folder's name back to what it was original? I figure you've got nothing to lose so you may as well try. Good luck. :)
Click to expand...

Well, now that I reset the friggin PRAM what-ever thing, the home folder is back to the name is was before I renamed it. However, everything is still gone.

I had everything backed up daily using Apple's backup program but oddly enough, it doesn't seem to do **** when I run the restore. Lucky me.
 
I suspect that your files are all there, in your renamed former home folder. Are there now two folders inside the Users folder? I hope so. You might do Get Info on each one to see the calculated size. One should be rather big, because that is where all your files are.

So take two deep breaths and let's see what we can do about it.

I'll assume you see two folders. Suppose your user name is AppleFreak, so your home folder was /Users/AppleFreak, and you renamed it to /Users/OrangeFreak. Then the Finder wouldn't be able to find your home folder when you next logged in, so it may have created a new /Users/AppleFreak folder with a newly initialized environment in it. Your files in /Users/OrangeFreak would be intact, just unused.

If this is the case, I suggest renaming /Users/AppleFreak to /Users/AppleFreak2, renaming /Users/OrangeFreak back to /Users/AppleFreak, and then restarting.
 
Doctor Q said:
I suspect that your files are all there, in your renamed former home folder. Are there now two folders inside the Users folder? I hope so. You might do Get Info on each one to see the calculated size. One should be rather big, because that is where all your files are.

So take two deep breaths and let's see what we can do about it.

I'll assume you see two folders. Suppose your user name is AppleFreak, so your home folder was /Users/AppleFreak, and you renamed it to /Users/OrangeFreak. Then the Finder wouldn't be able to find your home folder when you next logged in, so it may have created a new /Users/AppleFreak folder with a newly initialized environment in it. Your files in /Users/OrangeFreak would be intact, just unused.

If this is the case, I suggest renaming /Users/AppleFreak to /Users/AppleFreak2, renaming /Users/OrangeFreak back to /Users/AppleFreak, and then restarting.
Click to expand...

Problem is, now that I followed the other suggestion of reseting my PRAM, my folder is renamed back to the way it was before I renamed it.

Currently, in my users folder there is the folder which I renamed the home folder (not a home folder icon though, just a regular folder icon next to it) which is 47.2GB.

Then there is the folder which has the name of the home folder before I renamed it but is only 632MB.

If I were to delete the current home folder, and then rename the folder which is 47.2GB back to the original name, would that solve everything and put my system back to normal?

I would delete the current home folder right now but it says if I want to do that it will be permentatly deleted and I wanted to make sure with you before I do this.
 
Are you kidding?

Apple!Freak said:
Seriously, my life was on this thing. I feel like I just got hit by Katrina. Somebody kill me.
Click to expand...

I know you're upset...but that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Until you lose your house, belongings, keepsakes, neighborhood, town and maybe a few friends to a nearly unavoidable natural disaster...SHUT UP ABOUT IT.

Your backup doesn't work? What in the heck are you not doing right?
 
appleretailguy said:
I know you're upset...but that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Until you lose your house, belongings, keepsakes, neighborhood, town and maybe a few friends to a nearly unavoidable natural disaster...SHUT UP ABOUT IT.

Your backup doesn't work? What in the heck are you not doing right?
Click to expand...

Maybe it was dumb, but I'll be much more inclined to admit that when/if this gets fixed.
 
Zapping the PRAM was a good idea. Comparing a computer failure to the greatest disaster in American history was a bad idea. iTunes songs can be added to any user library just by dragging them into iTunes from anywhere on the hard drive, assuming they're still on there somewhere. Same thing with iPhoto. I don't know about address book (I only use it to back up my phone with iSync), but I wouldn't be surprised if it was the same there.
 
Okay, I don't know how, but my entire system just came back online. Maybe it was taking a nap, I don't know. Everything is back to normal, and I'm so happy that I really don't even know what to say right now. It's as though nothing even happened and the past hour and a half of my life didn't happen. Amazing.

Either way, thank you all very much for your help. And thank you especially Doctor Q, I think your advice helped solve this in one way or another, although it was most likely all of your guys help.

Thanks again. - Problem solved. - Now I can go to bed and sleep well (whereas I was planning on staying up all night to handle this). :)
 
I don't use a program. I find it easier and quicker to just back up the individual files I need - documents, emails, contacts, iCal info and that's about it. :)
 
As a Christian, your thread title is quite offensive. As a mac user, how dare you suggest that macs malfunction ! You are a numpty of the highest order.
 
Apple!Freak said:
Either way, thank you all very much for your help. And thank you especially Doctor Q, I think your advice helped solve this in one way or another, although it was most likely all of your guys help.
Click to expand...

Yes, Dr. Q's advice to STAY CALM was the best you could receive and see, it all worked out. We are always willing to help here at the forums.
(I knew it wasn't the PRAM ;) ).
 
I'm glad it worked out, Apple!Freak. Whew!

Backups are annoying, time-consuming, and sooooooooooo important. Here is a thread about just that topic.

You can back up to CDs, DVDs, from your system disk to another disk, to a .mac account, to another web-based backup service, to another computer in the house, to a flash drive, to an iPod, or to a tape drive. (What methods did I forget?) We all need to pick the least inconvenient of these and remember to do it regularly.
 
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