Never again a Mac

J

Jim Beeson

Registered
I was trying to clean up files and moved some items to "Trash" from the "Search For", "All Documents", "By Week" listing, believing this was just a record of visits that when "cleaned" would free up space. Not so. It turns out that these were files and applications that were indeed visited but they were also direct links that should not have been "touched". I tried to pull them out of "Trash" and now they are corrupted and will not open/work. I lost everything, all my "Pages" documents and many, many applications. I had not dumped "Trash", I had just moved items to it, so you would think it would be easy to "undo" that action. Not so.
I WILL NEVER BUY ANOTHER MAC. They are not intuitive like they had been years ago. No wonder most people buy a Microsoft formatted pc.
And, finding a free site for system support has been unfruitful. I can't believe the frustration I have encountered with this d--n Mac. Problems are manifest thru-out. The "Help" prompt is absolutely worthless!
 
Perhaps your frustration stems from a lack of experience with the Mac OS X operating system. We would be more than glad to help you with any issues you are having.

What you were experiencing, specifically in your post, are what's called "Smart Folders." They are folders of files that are the result of a specific Spotlight search... and, as you found out, when you manipulate the files in those "Smart Folders," yes, you are indeed manipulating the actual, original file.

I can see how this would be frustrating -- not knowing this ahead of time -- but I assure you, if you go into Mac OS X with an open mind and don't assume that it works like Windows works, then I'd be willing to bet you'd enjoy your time with your Mac.

Again, we would love to help with any problems you have.
 
Sorry that my first post was negative. I was at my limit of frustration. Yes, I have a working bias after having used other operating systems.
Now, I see another "quirk" though. I tried to download the trial recovery software and it says, "Do not download software on the drive that contains lost data. This may cause disk overwrite and permanent data loss!"
My lost files were on my hardrive. So, if I can't write to my hardrive, where do I write to?
Can't I just undo the transfer to the "Trash" file?
Do I need a recovery program outside of what is built into the OSX?
Please bear with me - I am not as smart as others on this forum and I sense that it may be hard for some to "tolerate" those who do not have a similar knowledge basis.
 
Jim,

the Trash does not (yet) have an "untrash" button. For safe Mac experience, I would suggest you use TimeMachine. It can help you in case of mistakes (which I hope will become quite rare) and in case of sudden harddisk death (which happen, I can tell).
 
Jim Beeson said:
Sorry that my first post was negative. I was at my limit of frustration. Yes, I have a working bias after having used other operating systems.
Now, I see another "quirk" though. I tried to download the trial recovery software and it says, "Do not download software on the drive that contains lost data. This may cause disk overwrite and permanent data loss!"
My lost files were on my hardrive. So, if I can't write to my hardrive, where do I write to?
Can't I just undo the transfer to the "Trash" file?
Do I need a recovery program outside of what is built into the OSX?
Please bear with me - I am not as smart as others on this forum and I sense that it may be hard for some to "tolerate" those who do not have a similar knowledge basis.
Click to expand...
The Trash is not a file; it is a directory [or folder]. Items placed in the Trash remain in the Trash until you delete them.

As for the warning about not recovering files to the volume from which they were erased--this is not a Mac-specific warning. It applies to all volumes on all operating systems. When files are erased, their data remains on the volume. The name of the files are simply changed so that the user no longer sees them and the OS knows that it can write over the files whenever it wants. An erased file may remain completely intact and recoverable for months if not years.

However, the files that you want to recover may be written over if you continue to write to the volume. When you "recover" a file, you copy its contents to a new location. If you recover it to its original volume, then you run the risk of writing over the files that you are trying to recover.

Instead of recovering to the original volume, you should recover your files to a different volume. This may be a second partition, different internal drive, external drive, USB thumb drive, or something.
 
MisterMe said:
That will do nothing to help the OP recover his lost files. In fact, it may render them unrecoverable.
Click to expand...

Agreed. If possible, start from another Mac using your machine as a Firewire target so that you can backup everything before you do anything else.

(You start your Mac in target mode by pressing "T" at start-up. You can then connect it to another Mac using Firewire connection and it will appear as an external Firewire drive)
 
I don't want to sound like a heartless jerk, but I have to add to what chevy said. In this day and age, or any day and age, to not have complete system and file back up is really asking for it. I have two family members and two neighbors who recently lost tons of important files recently when both Macs and PC's died. One actually dished out hundreds for a file recovery service. Alas, we all seem to have to learn the hard way. No matter what OS, what brand, platform... losses and disasters will happen. It is only a matter of time. I have had computers die, hard drives die and it didn't phase me a bit. No worries, no agony, no dread... A hundred dollar external drive, time machine or Carbon Copy Cloner are all you need to make life that much better when disasters happen.

I know you are having a hard time now, but you will get through it. When you do, go out and get that drive and be religious about back ups. Or, try an online backup service for your files.
 
karavite said:
I don't want to sound like a heartless jerk, but I have to add to what chevy said. In this day and age, or any day and age, to not have complete system and file back up is really asking for it.
Click to expand...

I feel the same way. People just not backing up is like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute.
 
chevy said:
Agreed. If possible, start from another Mac using your machine as a Firewire target so that you can backup everything before you do anything else.

(You start your Mac in target mode by pressing "T" at start-up. You can then connect it to another Mac using Firewire connection and it will appear as an external Firewire drive)
Click to expand...

True. I quickly glanced through the posts and didn't realize that non-system files were deleted. A third-party utility needs to be run and see if anything can be recovered. And backing up is a must. I have no sympathy for people when they lose stuff because of lack of backing up. Especially considering how cheaper external hard drives are. And to say that one won't get another Mac due to a personal mistake is crazy!
 
I really didn't want to be harsh and we don't want to lose this mac user! I think he has a valid argument that there was a usability issue here. Nielsen Heuristic, "Error Prevention." That this poor guy ended up deleting system files by accident is a case of the Mac failing to give him warning and/or by allowing him to access/delete these files in the first place. I know some of you are super gurus and just know these things, but to allow a new user, less interested in the technical details, to commit these kind of error is, I think, a valid beef. To have this kind of thing occur and be so disruptive is very frustrating. However, back to back ups. If you keep up on it, any error or disaster can be handled.
 
Jim Beeson said:
I was trying to clean up files and moved some items to "Trash" from the "Search For", "All Documents", "By Week" listing, believing this was just a record of visits that when "cleaned" would free up space. Not so. It turns out that these were files and applications that were indeed visited but they were also direct links that should not have been "touched". I tried to pull them out of "Trash" and now they are corrupted and will not open/work.
Click to expand...

The _last sentence_ sounds strange, though. If the files were only moved to the Trash and then moved back, they should *NOT* be corrupted and should open and work just fine and dandy. I can't reproduce this problem on any machine, so I have to assume that something else has happened between moving them to the Trash and moving them back to their original location (or some other location).

(About the "people should backup" movement: Everytime a person comes to our store with a broken harddrive, I nowadays say in a soothing voice and with a smile... "Don't worry! Everything's perfectly okay. You simply attach your backup harddrive to your computer after we've replaced its harddrive and you reinstall Mac OS X using the backup on that external volume." The look on their faces are glorious. About 90% of them think I'm a complete a**hole, but more surprisingly, there are about 10% who actually had Time Machine backups, but didn't know they could simply restore at installation time.)
 
fryke said:
(About the "people should backup" movement: Everytime a person comes to our store with a broken harddrive, I nowadays say in a soothing voice and with a smile... "Don't worry! Everything's perfectly okay. You simply attach your backup harddrive to your computer after we've replaced its harddrive and you reinstall Mac OS X using the backup on that external volume." The look on their faces are glorious. About 90% of them think I'm a complete a**hole, but more surprisingly, there are about 10% who actually had Time Machine backups, but didn't know they could simply restore at installation time.)
Click to expand...

If the OP had put things back correctly everything would've been fine. Seeing as how he trashed everything I highly doubt he had enough sense to put things back correctly. But hes screaming about how intuitive Macs should be but are not. I welcome him to go back to a PC and pull that same stunt. Not only will all of his files be corrupted, but he will have a broken, non booting PC. It just blows my mind how easy it is with 10.5 to have your data COMPLETELY backed up, with the ability to COMPLETELY restore it but so few actually utilize it. You can blame ignorance in some part, but then there is still the "it won't happen to me" crowd that doesn't realize how important there data is until its gone, or just don't realize HDs fail and disasters all the time.
 
fryke said:
But he said he didn't empty the trash, if I understood that correctly...
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You are correct. That is what he said. However, you cannot trash System files willy-nilly as you know very well. The OP has not been forthcoming with what he did to his system. It sounds to me like he is running as root.
 
Two months ago, my wife (in tears) told me her Mac was off and wouldn't restart. After messing around for an hour, I concluded it was as dead as Julius Caesar. Now she's really wailing. I connected her TimeMachine disk to my Mac and looked up the date/time of the last backup - and then asked her when was the last time she did anything. Since the answer was before the backup, I told her she wouldn't lose a thing. I earned yea brownie points that day.

I bought her a new Mac and added a couple extra Firewire drives, just in case. They are the cheapest insurance available.
 
fryke said:
Everytime a person comes to our store with a broken harddrive, I nowadays say in a soothing voice and with a smile... "Don't worry! Everything's perfectly okay. You simply attach your backup harddrive to your computer after we've replaced its harddrive and you reinstall Mac OS X using the backup on that external volume." The look on their faces are glorious. About 90% of them think I'm a complete a**hole, but more surprisingly, there are about 10% who actually had Time Machine backups, but didn't know they could simply restore at installation time.)
Click to expand...

Oh man, that is brutal! :)
 
if you are trying to recover a lost partition for Mac, AppleXsoft File Recovery for Mac will be a good choice.
If the partition containing the Operating system is lost, remove the hard drive from the computer and connect it as a secondary drive and trial run Applexsoft File Recovery Software from the host operating system to recover the lost partition. On the other hand if any other partition containing the file is lost, you can install the software on another healthy partition and perform the file recovery.
 
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