Help - My Mac has lost it's mind!

[New Forester]

Hi
I have an iMAC 700mhz PowerPC G4, With 256 MB SDRAM Running Mac OS X Version 10.3.9.
Over the last couple of weeks I have had programs like Safari and Firefox just opening then quitting for no apparent reason.
The last week my entourage program wouldn't work on line - it kept crashing. This all seemed to point to some sort of virus maybe? So I checked my Intego software made sure it was up to date, did a scan - nothing was revealed.
So I carried on using the machine and then on Sunday, I appeared to lose my iPhoto programme, I couldn't get access to the libraries - some 3000 photos.After a panic and a search I managed to locate the photos on the system - so far so good.
On Sunday, I noted that there were a couple of software updates, one for security the other for the iPod, so I downloaded them and restarted my Mac - as instructed.
On restarting the Mac it was like I had reset the machine...I have a message that said something about 'no volume of OS 10 found on the disk you have inserted do you want to initialise?' I pressed ignore. I found all of my desktop was gone, all of my files, programs like Firefox and Skype gone ... my email had defaulted to the original Mac icon etc.
Worse I can't access any of my files now although the HD shows the space is still occupied.
I have tried to download various help packages, but can't mount anything with a .dmg prefix - the system says 'no mountable file system found'.
I really need some help!
I really want to save my precious photos and then the Mac HD can be reformatted or fixed or whatever!
Can anyone help me find my files or help to fix this?

[FreeLance]

Hello New Forester,

Try this:

First use the "Disk Utilities" application located in your Utilities folder and perform a "Repair Disk Permissions".

Then try the following (requires the use of the Terminal application also located in the Utilities folder)

sudo sh /etc/daily
sudo sh /etc/weekly
sudo sh /etc/monthly

These are built in maintenace routines. Type each line in separately, wait till it finishes then type in the next line.

Usually the above routines will fix most common problems encountered. If these don't work it may point to something else ... hardware, software conflicts etc.

Hope this helps

[New Forester]

Thank you very much !
I will give them a try a bit later tonight and let you know what happens !
Regards

[New Forester]

Hi Freelance
I have tried the repair function, the system just hangs...
In terms of the routines, the first seemed to work...
The second reported that there was no such file or directory for everything...
The Third seemed to run ...
I shut the machine down and rebooted.
No Change ... still got the initialisation message...
Is there anyway of retreiving my photo files from the machine?
I could then reformat?
I am very familiar with finding stuff on PCs but although I have had my Mac for 3 years - I would not know where to look for the directory... Can you help at all?

[New Forester]

The other anomaly I have noticed is that the iCal date in the dock or viewed Applications is displaying the date as July 17th... when you click on it it corrects itself...wierd

[ElDiabloConCaca]

The iCal thing is normal -- it will always display July 17th whenever it hasn't been launched. Logging out or restarting will always cause the iCal icon to revert to July 17th.

Once you launch iCal, the Dock icon will correctly reflect the current date, and will continue to do so until you restart or logout (or it becomes the next day and iCal isn't running).

[New Forester]

Thanks for that!
Something less to worry about!

[FreeLance]

Hello Forrester,

Hmmm ... sounds like your is hosed.

If you have "Disk Warrior" or "TechTools" for OS X you could try them. In the past they have helped me. But I've never had a problem as severe as yours.

One solution I can think of is to connect to the effected mac over a network from another mac/pc to retrieve the photo's.

you can find your photo's (assuming your using iPhoto) in the "Pictures" folder.

If that fails you can reinstall the OS, but choose the option that ONLY replaces the OS X system files which should leave the other folders intact. This method effectively installs a fresh "System" in cases were the OS X system files have been hosed.