Lost Account During An Installation Process

R

Redskin

Registered
Hi dear tech.

I'm on mac OS X TIGER and I recently installed a software that comes with an interactive board called Smartboard.

During the installation process, I noticed that it was installing some things that I don't need (cliparts).

I stopped the installation and then, when it brings me back to the desktop, I couldn't see anymore my files.

It seems like my user account was reseted (No more personalised applications shortcuts on the dock, no pictures in iPhoto or songs in iTunes, in fact, it was like if I started those softs for the first time).

I tried to log on and off, my account is still working, but I can't find my files, iPhoto pictures, iTunes songs, etc.

I really need to go back, I lost more than 3000 family, vacations and other pictures, I lost all my music that I spent a lot of time to put in mp3 format and I lost important files for my work.

I opened Console and saw that there was an error during the installation process. Maybe a process is still running.

My files don't seems to be deleted (disk space seems to be the same as before it crashes (in fact, it doesn't crash, but a mysterious process crashed) but just unavailable. Like if I could not log in my real account. I tried a search with .mp3 and .jpg but didn't find my files.

In the users folder, there is 3 other accounts (that I didn't create) and that I know nothing about.(those accounts are named like my own account (suppose that it's "main_account") followed by numbers like: "main_account 1" / "main_account 2" / "main_account 3"). I can't tell when those account where created and if it was caused by the installation process.

Thanks to take time helping me.
 
Redskin said:
During the installation process, I noticed that it was installing some things that I don't need (cliparts). I stopped the installation ...
Click to expand...
That was very, very stupid ! It's wise to *always* let an installation process run it's course and then make the necessary modifications later.

Now, we need to use a couple of utilities to clean up your mess!
!But! we need to get very nerdy in order to find out what stuff is where and how to rescue you.

1) Open the 'System Preferences' 'Account' panel and note your 'short user name'
2) Start 'Terminal'
3) I want you to post the results of the following two commandlines here in the forum:
cd /Users ; ls -al
nidump -r /users/xxx .
Replace 'xxx' with your 'short-user-name (without quotes), and the line *does* end with a '.' - don't forget it !
 
like you asked, here's the commands results.

Last login: Wed Nov 2 13:12:16 on ttyp1
Welcome to Darwin!
ibook:~ robingagnon$ cd /users ; ls -al
total 32
drwxrwxr-t 14 root admin 476 Nov 2 13:09 .
drwxrwxr-t 46 root admin 1666 Nov 2 13:08 ..
-rw-rw-r-- 1 robingag admin 12292 Oct 26 15:35 .DS_Store
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 0 Mar 20 2005 .localized
dr-xr-xr-x 3 robingag robingag 102 Oct 26 15:21 .robingagnon
drwxrwxrwt 10 root wheel 340 Oct 18 13:56 Shared
drwxr-xr-x 13 mel mel 442 Jul 16 2004 mel
drwx------ 15 robingag robingag 612 Nov 2 13:09 robingagnon
drwx------ 4 robingag admin 136 Sep 16 16:22 robingagnon 1
drwxr-xr-x 13 robingag robingag 442 Oct 19 10:27 robingagnon 2
drwxr-xr-x 12 robingag robingag 408 Oct 18 14:45 robingagnon 3
drwxr-xr-x 13 root admin 442 Oct 26 11:34 robingagnon1
drwxr-xr-x 13 robingag robingag 442 Oct 26 11:36 robingagnon2
drwxr-xr-x 13 robingag robingag 442 Oct 26 11:38 robingagnon3
ibook:/users robingagnon$ nidump -r /users/robingagnon .
{
"hint" = ( "" );
"sharedDir" = ( "Public" );
"_writers_passwd" = ( "robingagnon" );
"name" = ( "robingagnon" );
"home" = ( "/Users/robingagnon" );
"authentication_authority" = ( ";ShadowHash;HASHLIST:<SALTED-SHA1>" );
"passwd" = ( "********" );
"_writers_hint" = ( "robingagnon" );
"_writers_picture" = ( "robingagnon" );
"_shadow_passwd" = ( "" );
"realname" = ( "Robin Gagnon" );
"uid" = ( "501" );
"shell" = ( "/bin/bash" );
"generateduid" = ( "5B8163DA-D6D5-11D8-A3CE-000A95C00F08" );
"naprivs" = ( "-1073741569" );
"gid" = ( "501" );
"home_loc" = ( "<home_dir><url>file://localhost/Users/robingagnon/robingagnon.sparseimage</url></home_dir>" );
"_writers_tim_password" = ( "robingagnon" );
"_writers_realname" = ( "robingagnon" );
"picture" = ( "/Library/Caches/com.apple.user501pictureCache.tiff" );
}
ibook:/users robingagnon$




Hope you'll be able to help me!


Thanks again.
 
OK - you should be able to use Finder to browse all of the other home folders except 'mel', 'robingagnon1' and '.robingagnon'. The last one *doesn't* show up in /Users because the name is starting with a '.'

So, let's start by making you able to browse the last two also.
Execute the following two commands in Terminal:
mv .robingagnon robingagnon4
sudo chown -R robingag:robingag robingagnon1
and enter your admin password when prompted

Hopefully, your lost data is in one of the folders you can now see in 'Users'
Let me know how it goes

Good Luck
 
It doesn't seems to work, it's like that:

ibook:/users robingagnon$ sudo chown -R robingag:robingag robingagnon1
Password:
chown: robingag: Invalid argument
ibook:/users robingagnon$


You're the only that can help me.


Thanks alot.
 
Arrgghh - It's because the output of the user/group columns has been truncated to just 8 characters. We should use 'robingagnon' instead of just 'robingag' - you can see that from the 'name' parameter in the output of the 'nidump' command. So:
sudo chown -R robingagnon:robingagnon robingagnon1
 
I had to restart and now, I can no longer log with my account. It tries to open my account, but nothing (desktop, dock) appears, only a blue screen!!!!

Think it's the end?!?
 
1) Create a completely new user account, !but! for the short name use a name with at most 8 letters - like 'robin'
2) log in as your new 'robin' account
3) log in as 'root' and start Terminal
4) execute: chown -R robin:robin robingag*
5) repeat 2)

you should now be able to get hold of everything from the old robingagnon accounts

6) delete the 'robingagnon' account
7) delete the 'robingagnon' folders

It looks as if Mac OS X has severe problems in finding the right folder to use as your home directory and more or less creates an new home directory each time you log in
 
I have done every things you told me, and have access to all files from old accounts, but still not found my files.

Don't know what's appened with them. Maybe I could retrieve them with some utilities like norton?


Thanks.
 
hmmm ...

1) try this one from Terminal first: sudo find / -type f -iname '*jpg' | less
but be prepared for a lot of output. It searches your whole HD for files ending in 'jpg' regardless of case, and sends the output into a viewer. Try 'man less' in Terminal for instructions on using less , but hitting [space] will scroll down a page

2) As far as I know, Norton doesn't work under Mac OS X

3) did you get the folder starting with '.' renamed with mv ? Files and folders starting with a '.' are invisible to Finder.
 
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