Restoring my Mac

[r00st]

I recently started working with MACs after being an avid PC user.. this looks like a good place to start posting, especially if I'm going to be having problems like this!

Long story short.. I was transfering all my fonts from an external harddrive to my mac. The mouse spazzed out when I was dragging and dropping the fonts and I let the mouse button go.

So I watched 2,800 fonts get copied to the desktop of the mac, it took forever, as they all stacked on top of eachother.

Basically the admin account is inaccessible now.. it lags baaad when I log-in. If I click anywhere or try and select a single font to delete off the desktop, it basically freezes. I let it sit for a day after selecting a single font to delete and the wheel just kept on spinning.

I called applecare and found it exteremely hard to understand the support guys.

Is there a way to just wipe my mac clean and restore it to factory settings so I can log-in to my admin user account?

 

[macAttack]

you wnt to delete everything? you wont have any information....to do that you need the restore disks or a tiger or panther or w.e you want to run. YOu can archive all of your information and isntall to. what would you like to do?

 

[r00st]

If I lose all the data on the comp so far, it won't be a big deal. All the mac is used for is photoshop and video editing. So all the files are on externals..

The thing is, can you use the restore disks or wipe clean the system from a non-administrator account?

The only account I can log-in to is a guest account that has very limited options..

And is the tiger/panther a downloadable file that wipes the system clean?

 

[cazabam]

I did that once - very annoying. However, if you immediately hit 'command-Z' it will put all the files back where they came from, effectively undoing the move. Just something for the future.

 

[macAttack]

you need the restore cds to reinstall tiger. They came with the computer. Optionally you can have the tiger installation or panther disks. Just instert these disks, and restasrt and hold down "c" when you see the apple on the screen, follow the onscreen directions.

 

[baggss]

As macattack said, insert the Tiger DVD (which should have come with the Mac), reboot the Mac while holding down the C key. When it get to the Install screens follow the instructions. About 3 or 4 screens in there will an OPTIONS button in the bottom right corner of the Window, click that and select the option to completely erase the system and install fresh.

 

[r00st]

Thanks for the responses.. I'll give it a shot

 

[Osiris22x]

As somebody mentioned, the next time you screw something up like that, immediately press Command-Z AFTER the operation finishes, and it will undo. (Command is the Apple key)

Secondly, this is a fantastic reason to learn a few basic Unix commands. You can simply drop into Terminal (if you can get it launched) and erase the files at the command prompt, bypassing the Finder.

>sudo rm -Rfv ~/Desktop/*

Something like that should erase all of the files on your desktop.