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URGENT: data lost after restarting leopard

Y

ytbryan

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 8, 2009
11
0
hi all,

i am using macbook macos 10.5.7.

i did a restart after reinstalling mysql.

after the restart, all my personal user data are gone. my desktop got wipe out clean with only Macintosh HD drive on it. my dock changed to default setting.

i did a check on my applications and all the applications are still intact. however, when i open my firefox, all the personal data are gone. ie the firefox seems to be newly download. There seems to be no users data in any of the applications. and although all my applications are still there, other folders located in desktop, roots, and other locations are gone.
My documents and download are also gone. ( wipe clean)

but java, ruby and mysql are intact.


can someone advise me what to do or did this happen to anybody else?


:( desperate
bryan
 
Are you logged into your account? It sounds like you are in a new user's account.
 
ytbryan said:
hi all,

i am using macbook macos 10.5.7.

i did a restart after reinstalling mysql.

after the restart, all my personal user data are gone. my desktop got wipe out clean with only Macintosh HD drive on it. my dock changed to default setting.

i did a check on my applications and all the applications are still intact. however, when i open my firefox, all the personal data are gone. ie the firefox seems to be newly download. There seems to be no users data in any of the applications. and although all my applications are still there, other folders located in desktop, roots, and other locations are gone.
My documents and download are also gone. ( wipe clean)

but java, ruby and mysql are intact.


can someone advise me what to do or did this happen to anybody else?


:( desperate
bryan
Click to expand...


Hrmm.. It sounds like you are in a completely different/fresh user account.

Double click on your hard drive, click on Users.

Whatever user you are currently logged into will have a house for an icon, the others will be just folders. I assume you will find another account in there.

If so, just go to the Apple, click Log Out, then go into your right account.
 
thanks for the quick reply.

i am sure that i login to the correct account. ( i tried logging out and in and restarting many times already)

you are right. it seems to be a fresh account. and i am super worried that my data are gone! but the strange thing is that i log in to the correct account but it appear like a fresh account.
 
there's only my admin account and a guest account.
no other account.
 
nope i don have :( ARHHHHHHHGGG
this is very strange. all my data.....

but really thanks for the prompt reply.
 
ytbryan said:
nope i don have :( ARHHHHHHHGGG
this is very strange. all my data.....

but really thanks for the prompt reply.
Click to expand...

This is a perfect example of why you Always keep a backup. That is extremely weird how you lost data. Can you describe what you did before the restart?
 
Did you possibly rename the home folder (User account nickname), as it would not do anything to your account until you restarted...
This would then transfer all your contents into a "Previous Systems folder"....

Just another thing to check for, but it has been years since I encountered something like this so I could be totally off..

maybe he has been in root this whole time!?
 
thanks for everyone suggestion.

i did a disk verification. it says the harddisk APPEARs to be OK.

if it is rename, i will probably see it as another folder. but i couldn't find it. I tried searching spotlight for the missing folders and files but they are not there. The entire Documents directory is gone which i have no idea why.

if i remember correctly, this is what i did before the restart:

download mysql x86 (32 bits) from http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.1.html and install.


and i also remove mysql from mac using these:

sudo rm /usr/local/mysql
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/mysql*
sudo rm -rf /Library/StartupItems/MySQLCOM
sudo rm -rf /Library/PreferencePanes/My*
sudo rm -rf /Library/Receipts/mysql*
sudo rm -rf /Library/Receipts/MySQL*


i really learnt my lesson. it's a painful one. it sucks.
 
Open Finder and go to /Users. Any extra folders? Does your drive suddenly have a lot of free space?

If your files are truly deleted and you want any hope of recovering them, power down your computer immediately and pull the drive.
 
i am not sure about the diskspace. seems to be the same. then again, i didn't really monitor the disk space.

anybody has any good solution to recover those data?
 
nope there is no extra folder in /users.

just curious, why will keeping it running reducing the chances of recovering it? (already switch off)


if there some software to scan through the harddisk for lost files/directory?
 
Did you change your username or short username? What you can do is... Make a new administrator account, log in to that, rename your previous home folder to the exact shortname of your main account. Then log into your main. Everything should be back to normal.
 
Just happened to me too.

I just applied an apple update to my system, and it required a reboot. After the reboot all of my files are gone from ym desktop (I still have the folders, but no actual files in them. I logged in to my time Machine and tried to do a back up, but it only seems to be showing around half of my files. I just did a backup two hours ago and for some reason it isn't showing my files there now either... What the heck!!! Any ideas?
 
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