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URGENT mac eating itself(deleting itself)

N

norwegian-dude

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 10, 2011
10
0
my mac started to eat itself, how do i stop it?
its a macbook-pro 13inch with snow-leopard


it started deleting files after i downloaded motion 5, it then had 6gb free, now it has 11,5, i checked after a minute that it then had 12gb free.....

its not any info in the console and i don't know how to get back my files without rebooting the computer...
it has a lot of very important pics and files, that does not exist anywhere else, i'm scared as hell right now after i thought that i would take backup tomorrow, and its too late! apple tech support did not answer me...

please help!

[edit]
is there a way to just move the files a another hard drive and do virus search from there?
:( mac is not safe anymore :(

in that computer i have information about my family(parts of my family is dead) and the only place the info is is on my mac...

[edit]
i'm going to try carbon copy cloner on firewire,

and do anyone of you know how to get a thunderbolt --> firewire? if so i can just start it in target-mode...
 
Last edited:
Have you actually checked to see if it's really deleting any of your files and not just cleaning up install files etc. after your Motion install?
 
alFR said:
Have you actually checked to see if it's really deleting any of your files and not just cleaning up install files etc. after your Motion install?
Click to expand...

its not, i downloaded motion from torrent, but if so, its over 68 more people with the same problem, and my mac just had 7gb free space before
 
Last edited:
norwegian-dude said:
i downloaded motion from torrent
Click to expand...

Actually, you might have downloaded something just claiming to be Motion, but which was actually a Trojan that's now eating your data. Tough buns, I'm afraid. Good luck getting tech support for that...
 
alFR said:
Actually, you might have downloaded something just claiming to be Motion, but which was actually a Trojan that's now eating your data. Tough buns, I'm afraid. Good luck getting tech support for that...
Click to expand...

but motion actuly worked and how come that nobody has written about this?
and is there a way to move my hard drive onto an external hard drive?
 
Also, get backups of your important stuff. Having all eggs in just one basket is dumb, your computer could suffer a harddrive crash, get stolen or any number of things and then you'd lose everything.

Backups are important.
 
Did you actually lose data or did you just notice that you had more free space?
 
awer25 said:
Did you actually lose data or did you just notice that you had more free space?
Click to expand...

i just noticed and shut my computer down, i now use a mac book air until it fixed...

istat pro says that has 12gb of space, it should only have 7 at this point, and i'm not very happy about it
 
norwegian-dude said:
i just noticed and shut my computer down, i now use a mac book air until it fixed...

istat pro says that has 12gb of space, it should only have 7 at this point, and i'm not very happy about it
Click to expand...

wow!!! LOOOOL!!! I MEAN ROFL!!! I MEAN LMFAO!!! Dude, if you don't know for a fact that you lost any files, then don't make a big deal out of nothing, maybe your browser emptied it's temporary files, maybe some torrents got deleted, maybe you emptied your trash....good god it could be a number of things that would free up 5-6 gigs....if you had an actual virus, the bahaviour is much worse....
 
norwegian-dude said:
i just noticed and shut my computer down, i now use a mac book air until it fixed...

istat pro says that has 12gb of space, it should only have 7 at this point, and i'm not very happy about it
Click to expand...

So you have a MacBook Air and a MacBook Pro and you cannot be bothered to pay for software?
 
norwegian-dude said:
and do anyone of you know how to get a thunderbolt --> firewire? if so i can just start it in target-mode...
Click to expand...

i believe this is not possible.

the only way you can do target disk mode with TB is to connect to another mac that is TB capable.

u might want to just take the HD out of the computer and put it in a USB enclosure to copy the files. however, you risk infecting the computer that the USB drive is attached to :(

edit:
http://blog.macsales.com/10882-thunderbolt-via-target-disk-mode
 
getz76 said:
So you have a MacBook Air and a MacBook Pro and you cannot be bothered to pay for software?
Click to expand...
its not mine macbook air, it's my fathers, i just borrowed it to i can fix the problem, but i'm going to buy the soft were from now...

i'm going to try to move 238gb of files to my external hard drive now, withe the ccc as earlier told was a good program...
 
escogido said:
wow!!! LOOOOL!!! I MEAN ROFL!!! I MEAN LMFAO!!! Dude, if you don't know for a fact that you lost any files, then don't make a big deal out of nothing, maybe your browser emptied it's temporary files, maybe some torrents got deleted, maybe you emptied your trash....good god it could be a number of things that would free up 5-6 gigs....if you had an actual virus, the bahaviour is much worse....
Click to expand...


yes that is a possibility, but it has never occurred before now, so i am sure its not normal, and i'm sure you would be quite unhappy with this too if you knew that its files there(ca. 5 full websites, 2 films, almost a book, and a lot of pics)
that i can't risk to lose

yes i know i'm stupid for not back in up my files, but i don't have the time to clean my hard drives on a monthly basis, so i just quitted backing up when i change to snow leopard...
 
norwegian-dude said:
yes that is a possibility, but it has never occurred before now, so i am sure its not normal, and i'm sure you would be quite unhappy with this too if you knew that its files there(ca. 5 full websites, 2 films, almost a book, and a lot of pics)
that i can't risk to lose

yes i know i'm stupid for not back in up my files, but i don't have the time to clean my hard drives on a monthly basis, so i just quitted backing up when i change to snow leopard...
Click to expand...

Really no excuse not to back up. Buy an enclosure, buy a drive 2 X the size of what you need to back up. Connect to MBP... start time machine. Feel the relief flow through your body.

Sounds like you picked up a trojan that was piggybacking on Motion. Get an external disk and copy over just the files you don't want to lose (photo's, that book, documents, etc). Then wipe the internal drive and reinstall SL from scratch.
 
xlii said:
Really no excuse not to back up. Buy an enclosure, buy a drive 2 X the size of what you need to back up. Connect to MBP... start time machine. Feel the relief flow through your body.

Sounds like you picked up a trojan that was piggybacking on Motion. Get an external disk and copy over just the files you don't want to lose (photo's, that book, documents, etc). Then wipe the internal drive and reinstall SL from scratch.
Click to expand...


going to do so, i'm just going to copy everything to an external hard rive and, and restarting the system,and just take out what i need,
 
No viruses exist in the wild that can run on Mac OS X, and there never have been any, since it was released 10 years ago. The handful of trojans that exist can be easily avoided with some basic education, common sense and care in what software you install:
Don't install software from torrent sites, as there is a very high risk of installing trojans.
 
GGJstudios said:
No viruses exist in the wild that can run on Mac OS X, and there never have been any, since it was released 10 years ago. The handful of trojans that exist can be easily avoided with some basic education, common sense and care in what software you install:
Don't install software from torrent sites, as there is a very high risk of installing trojans.
Click to expand...

yes do not install programs from torrent sites because it probably has a virus on it so if u can plug in an external hard drive and transfer all of the data that has not been deleted and reinstall your operating system
 
mhockey91 said:
yes do not install programs from torrent sites because it probably has a virus on it so if u can plug in an external hard drive and transfer all of the data that has not been deleted and reinstall your operating system
Click to expand...

but then, won't the trojan come along to my hard drive, since i'm not sure where this file is how can i stop it from moving to my new system?
 
norwegian-dude said:
but then, won't the trojan come along to my hard drive, since i'm not sure where this file is how can i stop it from moving to my new system?
Click to expand...

You can stop it by not installing the torrented Motion program. That is of course assuming you have a trojan. Freeing up of disk space doesn't automatically equal trojan.
 
norwegian-dude said:
but then, won't the trojan come along to my hard drive, since i'm not sure where this file is how can i stop it from moving to my new system?
Click to expand...
As long as you're careful what software you install, you're fine. Trojans can't self-replicate, so it can't infect your new drive unless you actively install it. Don't install any pirated software. Period. Please take the time to read the link I posted. Knowledge and common sense are your best defense against malware.
 
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