PRAM zaps its self ?

[Dean M]

Hi. For the last few weeks, when I boot my 17" flat screen G4, everything has reverted to all the 'system preferences' defaults.
I even lose my mail.app and it opens as a new account without any of my old mail or settings.
All my settings for downloaded apps have disappeared from the dock and the menu. I can restore them all from 'applications', but it takes a long time and I don't understand why this is happening.
I have used disk utility to verify permissions and the disk and everything checks out o.k. Anyone got an idea what's happening? Thanks. Dean M

[DeltaMac]

If your user account reverts to defaults, I can think of several possibilities.

Your hard drive may be completely filled. How much free space do you have? Running at almost full can contribute to some file corruption, and you may see your account settings at defaults.

You accidentally changed the name of your user account folder. You won't notice anything, until you restart your system. The account name doesn't change, but your system automatically makes a new user folder - and everything in the new/old user is defaults. You can see if that happened by looking in your hard drive/Users folder. You will see a user folder with a different name than your own user, in addition to the one in use. If you only have one user, another folder is the clue. The 'Shared' folder is normal, and Folder(s) with your account name. Does that make sense to you?

Directory corruption for other reasons might result with defaults, but those 2 are often the cause.

[Dean M]

Thanks DeltaMac !
That is exactly the problem.....I was fooling around in my HD 'Users'. My short name is beside the 'little house' icon and I thought the house icon should be beside the 'HOME' folder in my finder. I just dragged everything from one folder to the other. But now I don't know how to correct the problem as I dragged the folder with my name to the trash....Can you advise me further? Thanks. Dean M

[Dean M]

Thanks DeltaMac !
That is exactly the problem.....I was fooling around in my HD 'Users'. My short name is beside the 'little house' icon and I thought the house icon should be beside the 'HOME' folder in my finder. I just dragged everything from one folder to the other. But now I don't know how to correct the problem as I dragged the folder with my name to the trash....Can you advise me further? Thanks. Dean M

[eric2006]

Try this:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.h...en/mh1952.html

[Dean M]

Thanks Eric. Worked like a charm......Dean M