My files are gone! Help please!!!!

dlloyd

dlloyd

Official Pianist
Ok, I'm getting really scared here:
Last night I was trying to delete the files from a disk image, but the finder wouldn't delete them. So I went into the terminal and did "sudo rm -r * /Volumes/Disk\ Image". This didn't work, so I did it with 'su' instead. The hard drive ground for a few minutes and then the terminal came up with some sort of error message saying that "su" wasn't an available option.
I got tired of messing with it then, and went off to watch a video.

Soooooo, it is now the morning, and I want to play The Sims. I wake my computer up and insert the CD. It doesn't appear on the desktop, but I don't think anything of it because it still showed up in /Volumes. Now my siblings had been playing The Sims on my computer, so I wanted to restore the nieghborhood (which is done in the installer on the CD). I open up the installer and try to do this. It doesn't work, so I decide just to reinstall the whole thing. Before I did that, I wanted to drag the Carbon version of The Sims application to the desktop so I didn't have to download it again. It won't drag. So I dragged it the to link to my user folder that I keep in my dock. It went in there fine.
Now, I keep a folder in which I save everthing I download. I wanted to move that file into my Downloads folder. So I open my user folder. Apart from Library and that file I just dragged, there is nothing listed. I think to myself that I must be in the wrong folder, but it is the right one. I think to myself "oh crud, what do I do now?".
Now here is what I surmised: When trying to delete the disk image, somehow something got messed up and removed everthing in my Users folder.
Now, here it is: I didn't backup. This means that I have lost about four months of web design work and stuff. (You can bet I will be backing up every week now). My hard drive shows more space available (to the tune of about what my user folder took up). So I am assuming that my files are gone for good. Is this correct?
The stupid thing was that I had the latest versions of the stuff I was working on open when this happened. I could have saved them off and not lost so much. But I wasn't thinking straight. There goes an entire almost finished web site. Oh well. :(
 
NOTE: I cannot afford to go out an buy a $70 dolor application to get my files back. I don't have the money, and they aren't worth that.
 
Originally posted by dlloyd
NOTE: I cannot afford to go out an buy a $70 dolor application to get my files back. I don't have the money, and they aren't worth that.
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Personally, I would just reinstall them. However, my experience with Mac OS X over the last 6 months of trying out the Mac (switched from a PC), I realized that mopst of the problems I got were due to OS X's stupid permissions system.

Go to HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility and fix the permissions.

It might get the files back.

Oh and if you were wondering, I switched back to PC. I'd take the registry over permissions any day.

Andre
 
Originally posted by cellfish
Personally, I would just reinstall them. However, my experience with Mac OS X over the last 6 months of trying out the Mac (switched from a PC), I realized that mopst of the problems I got were due to OS X's stupid permissions system.

Go to HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility and fix the permissions.

It might get the files back.

Oh and if you were wondering, I switched back to PC. I'd take the registry over permissions any day.

Andre
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It won't be permissions. That wouldn't cause the files to dissapear.

Originally posted by wiz
have you tried restarting?
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I haven't, and I am scared to try. What I am afraid of is that when I restart, something final will happen and remove the files for sure, if they haven't been already.

Originally posted by toast
Rule of thumb #1: backup.
Rule of thumb #2: lock important stuff to avoid what happened.
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I am going to back up every night before I go to bed now.
I don't think locking would have helped. Going into 'su' mode means that you are acting as superuser (root). I won't be using this anymore, but root can do anything, locking files won't help.

After asking my Dad, who knows a little about UNIX, I have gathered that my files haven't actually been 'zeroed', just de-referenced.
He said that a utility might be able to get them back, but didn't have any idea about how to go about it. Does anyone have any idea? please?
I have seen to error of my ways, and it won't ever happen again (I am even considering shelling out for a tape drive or something), but I really really need these files back. If I can't, then I have just lost over four months of work. :'(
 
Let this be a lesson to us all.... I ALWAYS backup my files.... thats what i've been doing lately....
 
dlloyd, backing up every month should be okay ;)

Locking can help. I don' t use UNIX stuff, I don't need that. You don't need to use su mode or root privileges to build a website. I've been a faithful Trash user and Option-Trash for locked items. You never get any problems this way, promise.

Your dad is right. Unless you precise it (rm -o I think), the system just remembers the fils can be rewritten, it won't take the time to zero them. Norton can get your files back, I think.
 
Every month?! Are you insane? ;) I could design an entire site in a month, and it could go 'poof' the day before I back up! :eek: :)
Anyhow, maybe every week and whenever I have a particulary 'inspired' designing day. :D
I think now that my poor files have gone the way of Shakespear: dead as a doornail. I think I am going to give up trying to get them back, consolidate my losses, take the opportunity to 'zero' the whole drive (I have lost everything, so there is nothing more to lose than a lot of applications that I downloaded and never use. Plus I'll gain a lot of space and maybe some speed if my drive got fragmented or anything), partition it (right now just one big drive. I wonder if I really need classic though... maybe I'll try that 'classic on disk image' thing that someone invented!), and start over. I can redesign that site a lot faster a second time, now I know what I am doing.

Always optimistic! ;)
 
I did. I tried running a copy of Norton Unerase that a friend sent me (shhhhh!), but I think it has to be installed before the file is deleted.
Anyhow, it didn't come up with anything usful, as far as I can tell, just lots of plain text files.
 
What I don't understand is, what were you trying to accomplish with the asterisk in your command? It looks like you were in your home folder (~), and passed rm two arguments: * and /Volumes/Disk\ Image.

Another lesson to be gained here, one as obvious as "back up your files": always be careful what you pass to rm! As with many file-processing unix commands, it will happily take as many arguments as you care to give it. One good safety precaution is to move yourself to just above the directory you want to delete before you delete it; that way you shorten as much as possible the file reference you're passing to rm.

I.e., it's safer to rm -rf Disk\ Image than rm -rf /Volumes/Disk\ Image.

Anyway, sorry about that -- that's some s**t luck there.

Another approach to keeping web sites backed up, besides just backing them up locally, is to use something like Interarchy, which lets you mirror a site (via the FTP Disk functionality). This way you're automatically file-syncing between the host server, which is most likely backed up daily if it's a professional hosting service, and your own machine.
 
Originally posted by billbaloney
What I don't understand is, what were you trying to accomplish with the asterisk in your command? It looks like you were in your home folder (~), and passed rm two arguments: * and /Volumes/Disk\ Image.
I was trying to delete everything in a read only disk image (I didn't know it was read only at the time).I expect I was in the home directory, but using /Volumes/Disk\ Image/ should have changed the directory to the disk image, shouldn't it? Or did it look for a folder called /Volumes/Disk\ Image/ in my home folder, and when I didn't find it, it just deleted everything in the working directory? For some strange reason my Dad thinks that there was a 'link' to my home directory in the disk image, or something like that. I don't think he gets how a disk image works, but I didn't create the disk image in the first place, and I hadn't modified it, so I don't think this is the case.

Another lesson to be gained here, one as obvious as "back up your files": always be careful what you pass to rm! As with many file-processing unix commands, it will happily take as many arguments as you care to give it. One good safety precaution is to move yourself to just above the directory you want to delete before you delete it; that way you shorten as much as possible the file reference you're passing to rm.

I.e., it's safer to rm -rf Disk\ Image than rm -rf /Volumes/Disk\ Image.
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Okay, thanks. I'll remember that. I am planning on doing weekly backups, and whenever I have a particulary creative streak.

Anyway, sorry about that -- that's some s**t luck there.

Another approach to keeping web sites backed up, besides just backing them up locally, is to use something like Interarchy, which lets you mirror a site (via the FTP Disk functionality). This way you're automatically file-syncing between the host server, which is most likely backed up daily if it's a professional hosting service, and your own machine.
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I have a hosting account with ICDSoft, and I was just about to upload the site that night, if you will believe it. What twisted fate :(
Oh well, back to life :)
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I use iMsafe to backup my business, financial and any important files daily. I use two different hard drives for backup, and I burn these files to a CD once a week. I learned the hard way a few years ago. Backing up weekly is okay, but you cold still possibly loose a weeks worth of work that way.
Any backup utility is fine, but if your work is important, do it daily. It runs in the back ground.

http://homepage.mac.com/sweetcocoa/
 
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