I need help gaining access to my data

Unfortunately my "private folder" was accidentally deleted and my MBP would no longer reboot... I then reinstalled snow leopard and the desktop looked like it was a clean install (as if all of my data was gone) but my 200 gig hard drive shows that there's only 28 gigs of empty space left. When I try to go to the home folder to retrieve my data, it says that I don't have permission to access it.. How do I go about restoring my computer to its original form or at least gaining access to my original data? I tried logging out and back in but none of my old user names are there....
Thanks!

EKaru said:

Unfortunately my "private folder" was accidentally deleted and my MBP would no longer reboot... I then reinstalled snow leopard and the desktop looked like it was a clean install (as if all of my data was gone) but my 200 gig hard drive shows that there's only 28 gigs of empty space left. When I try to go to the home folder to retrieve my data, it says that I don't have permission to access it.. How do I go about restoring my computer to its original form or at least gaining access to my original data? I tried logging out and back in but none of my old user names are there....
Thanks!

Click to expand...

You may be out of luck since you did a reinstall of the OS, but if the files are there and the folders are visible you should be able to change the access permissions in the finder window (assuming you have Admin rights).
Click on the Folder in question. Select Get info to pull up a window and at the bottom is the user permissions, click on the lock icon to allow changes and you can then set the permissions to allow access.

If you aren't able to get to your data once you update the permissions. Your other choices are to use Data Recovery software or a Data Recovery service.

First and foremost, you might want to run Disk Utility and repair the permissions, this will most likely fix the permissions of the existing directories and should let you back in.

So when you re-installed Snow Leopard, you didn't format the HD, right?

Regards

Razormac said:

You may be out of luck since you did a reinstall of the OS, but if the files are there and the folders are visible you should be able to change the access permissions in the finder window (assuming you have Admin rights).
Click on the Folder in question. Select Get info to pull up a window and at the bottom is the user permissions, click on the lock icon to allow changes and you can then set the permissions to allow access.

If you aren't able to get to your data once you update the permissions. Your other choices are to use Data Recovery software or a Data Recovery service.

Click to expand...

Raz0rEdge said:

First and foremost, you might want to run Disk Utility and repair the permissions, this will most likely fix the permissions of the existing directories and should let you back in.

So when you re-installed Snow Leopard, you didn't format the HD, right?

Regards

Click to expand...

Thanks for the responses...
Running disk utility now (repairing permissions). When I reinstalled snow leopard, I did Not do an erase and reinstall. I simply booted from the disk and clicked install and there's only 28GB available on a 200GB drive, so all the data is there. It's just a matter of being able to access it.

okay, now things are really wacked....
I tried saving a screen grab to my desktop, but it said I didn't have permission to even do that....
Here's a photo of what happens when I try accessing my folders

Also when I restart my computer all the system preferences go back to default settings every time (display settings, trackpad speed etc)

If you are logging in as a different user (you said the old user accounts didn't show up) then repairing disk permissions won't, I don't think (I could be wrong), fix the issue. You don't have access permission which is a user Admin function and is based on how the accounts were originally set up.

If you will look in the lower left hand corner of the screen shot you posted, where it says, 'Sharing and Permissions'. it also says you have no access. You need to click on the lock icon to allow changes (per my previous post) and change the access rights.

Razormac said:

If you are logging in as a different user (you said the old user accounts didn't show up) then repairing disk permissions won't, I don't think (I could be wrong), fix the issue. You don't have access permission which is a user Admin function and is based on how the accounts were originally set up.

If you will look in the lower left hand corner of the screen shot you posted, where it says, 'Sharing and Permissions'. it also says you have no access. You need to click on the lock icon to allow changes (per my previous post) and change the access rights.

Click to expand...

That worked! Thanks Very much!!!

EKaru said:

That worked! Thanks Very much!!!

Click to expand...

You're welcome. Glad it helped.

BTW: Time for the mandatory plug about having a Backup strategy and being consistent with it. Hard Drives fail and you don't want to lose irreplaceable files and memories.

Razormac said:

You're welcome. Glad it helped.

BTW: Time for the mandatory plug about having a Backup strategy and being consistent with it. Hard Drives fail and you don't want to lose irreplaceable files and memories.

Click to expand...

Absolutely... Time for a time machine backup.

Administrator problem

This one is a little bit related to the last post. In my case, I turned on a "flavor" iMac, a G3/333, PowerPC 750 (2.2) with OSX Version 10.3 installed, which had been sitting, plugged in but untouched, in a spare room for a whole bunch of years. My younger son wants to use it now, and the problem is that when my older son came home with it, years back, from a garage sale, I think, he made himself administrator. Now he (Max) can't remember what he used for a password. We need to find a User Install CD for OS X for changing the administrator's password. Max didn't get any CD's from the seller; there isn't any purchased software on the iMac, either, but at least we need that one CD for an obvious reason. Where's the place to go and get it):

Try eBay or Craig's list. Try to find a "retail" version, not machine specific. It's probably going to cost more than what you might want to pay, so be prepared....