Major accident and need help

R

renee2500

Registered
I accidentally transferred 400+ photos to my desktop. I was trying to drop them in a folder not onto the desktop. Well now my computer is frozen.I 've rebooted so many times I can't count. I'm not sure what to do since I can't get into the desktop folder to delete them. Can anyone help me? Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks, Renee
 
You should be able to fix this in single-user mode.

1. Shut down the computer if it is on.
2. Press the power button to start the computer.
3. Immediately press and hold the Command (Apple)
and the S keys until you see white text appear.

At the prompt, type fsck -yf and press the return key.
Type mount -uw / and press the return key.
Type rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone and press return.
Type reboot

When the computer restarts, it should act as if you had
just installed OS X for the first time - it will prompt you
for information to set up an administrator-level account.

At this point, you can access the account that you were
unable to log in to and use the finder to delete the files
or create an empty folder and move all of the pictures
into it.
 
g/re/p,
thanks for your reply..
ok, got the white text and tried typing in the command you told me and it didn't work.. i tried it with both a space before the -y(as it looks like there is a space in your script) and without the space. It said command not found the first time and the second time--without the space--no such file or directory.
what should i do now??


--Wait a second i think i got it to work..
 
thanks for helping me deal with my annoying problem.. ok, finally i got it to work with but after typing the AppleSetupDone then I get the question
"override rw---------- root/wheel for var/db/AppleSetupDone?
do i answer yes? then on the next line type reboot?
 
Answer yes and then reboot - correct.



Alternate method: while still in single-user mode,
type cd /Users/yourusername/Desktop and
ls -la to veiw all of the desktop files.

You can delete the files using this command: rm -R *.jpg
(or *.JPG, or whatever type of file the pictures are)

.
 
i used the code and answered yes to every jpeg override and they are still on my desktop..
i'm not sure what to do at this point. after i answer yes then i typed reboot. nothing was removed.
 
Do you have root user enabled? if so, try to login to root user and delete what you want from your user's desktop folder (that is, if it still can go as far as the login window ;))
 
Yeah - it looks like a permissions problem.

You should be able to delete the files as Root.

To enable Root, use Netinfo Manager in the
Applications/Utilities folder.

With Netinfo Manager open, click on Security
and Authenticate, type in your admin password,
and then click on Enable Root User.

Go to System Preferences and open the Accounts preference
pane and check Login Options - "Display login window as"
should be set to show name and password.

Log out and log back in as Root:

username= Root
password= the password you set for Root

Be VERY careful to type the commands exactly
while logged in as Root, and be sure to log out
and log back in to the administrator account
and disable the Root account after you finish
deleting the files.
 
Did you ever get the computer to start up and prompt you for info to create a new admin user, or were you still in single-user mode?

If you are logged in to single-user mode properly, you should have root level privileges - i just now booted into single-user mode and used the
same commands and it worked.

Try doing it again using these commands:

mount -uw /
cd /var/db
ls -lai

Do you see the .AppleSetupDone file near top of the list?

If you see it, type rm .AppleSetupDone
(there is a space between rm and .AppleSetupDone)

and reboot
 
I know this is a year old thread, but I found it on google and I want to tell you people why it wasn't working, it was not a permissions error.

The command is:
rm /var/db/.applesetupdone

Notice: no caps

~ www.osconflict.com
 
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