help, files are missing from my iMac?

S

Spiral Girl

Registered
Hello,

I did something stupid and didn't realize it at the time. So you know how you open your finder window and you have the various names on the left. Well normally you have a users section and mine is my sisters name. So everytime I upload a photo to someone it says users/sister'sname/etc. I wanted to change that and so clicked on her user name in the finder window and clicked Get Info and just changed the name where it says Names and Extensions.

All of the sudden applications were opening like the first time and I panicked when Firefox started like I never installed it before asking if I wanted to import bookmarks. I restarted the computer and the default desktop comes on with basic stuff and all my custom things are gone. I typed in my user name and password like I always do. When I open the documents only one thing is there and I had like 50 things, my pictures folder is empty and I had all kinds of custom photos.

Also the user name is back to my sisters name in the finder window.

Am I doomed and have to install stuff from scratch or can I get my old setup back?

I know I should have a backup but have no external hard drive but need to get one.

S.
 
eric2006,

Thanks, I've done the first link part but think I messed it up.

Here is what I did:

So I went to sister's name and added _new on the end. Then went to the new name and renamed it sister's name and it said there is already one with that name. So now in Users I have the sister's name one which was the one with all the files gone and just has (Library and Desktop) in there, a shared folder (which has GarageBand Demo Songs, and Library), the new name one which I used when changing my sister's name which has (Desktop, Documents, Library, Movies, Music, Pictures, Shared and my original stuff I'd had in there), and sister's name with _new on the end which has (Desktop, Documents, Library Music) inside.

Restarted and have a new system. Have I created another system or something? I'm confused myself and must have done something wrong.

S.

Update:

Got it back to normal now, but just wondering what I can dump in Users. I have sister's name with all the original stuff in it, Shared (which I know not to dump), sister's name_new (which has Desktop, Documents, Library, and Music) and sister's name_new2 (which has Library and Desktop only).
 
Unless you changed something, it is getting settings from the original short username. You can be safe, and put the username_new stuff in a backup folder till you verify everything is working correctly.
 
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