How do I backup with the Finder not working?

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After installing the latest update for Lion, my Finder doesn't work anymore. It keeps restarting (blue light in dock goes on and off constantly) and any screen in any program that has anything to do with a list of files on my computer, crashes (e.g. when doing a "save file as..." or "open...").

When I create a new admin-user, the finder works fine when logged in on the new account, but is still not working on the old one.

The problem is described here - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3196067?start=15&tstart=0 - and I have tried all the solutions except for a clean reinstall, which is my current plan.

But how do I backup my data (really just my photos), if I can't use the finder, the new admin account can't see my old files and Time Machine won't let me choose backupfolder?

What can i do?

Thanks a lot :)

Ps. Furthermore my keyboard and touchpad have stopped working, but that might very well be a hardware problem. I have a white Macbook from late 2007.
 

chscag

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Well, with all those problems it's hard to advise you where to start. Try the fresh reinstall first if you can somehow get your photos off the drive. Do you have a backup of the photos?

Also, you might try activating the ROOT user account, log on as ROOT and extract your data that way. See this Apple KB article: LINK

If logging on with the ROOT account doesn't work to get at your photos, it's likely you have some hardware problems. Possibly hard drive corruption.
 
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Thanks for helping me out :)

I have managed to create and log in as a root user. The only thing is, that I can't figure out how to view the files of the other users (they don't show up in the Finder). I've tried googling it without luck. It does sound like the perfect solution, though.

Would you know how to access the files of other users using a root user?

The thing is, that I can open all the files that are in the stacked folders of my dock (downloads, documents, applications, movies) without any problems. And I can still view and edit my photos in Lightroom.

For that reason I am still pretty positive; I don't think my photos have been corrupted. Unfortunately I do not have a complete backup of my photos, so it better be the case... Stupid, yup.
 
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Ok, so just checked out an youtube-video on how to do it, and apparently the HDD is supposed show under devices in the finder. It doesn't. When I plug in my external hdd it only show that and iDisk.

Any suggestions as to what can be the problem?
 

bobtomay

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It's not "suppose" to show in the sidebar of Finder. That is an option that can be turned on or off in Finder - Preferences - Sidebar tab.
 
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It's not "suppose" to show in the sidebar of Finder. That is an option that can be turned on or off in Finder - Preferences - Sidebar tab.

Thanks for clearing that up :)

I can now see my hard drive and I can access my other users. But whenever I try to view the folder of the bugged user, the Finder crashes. Other users work fine.

Any ideas?

I am thinking about just buying a dock for my hdd and then view and save the files on another computer, but I would prefer not spending too much money.
 
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Update:

I looked through my external hdd and estimated that I have around 90 percent of my photos backed up (and I do the rest of my work online), and even more in online galleries, meaning that I would more or less "just" lose my original RAW-files plus a month worth of shooting.

So I decided to give this a second try (I had already tried it w/o luck) even though it said there was a risk of deleting everything: Status-Q » Blog Archive » Lion Finder crashing repeatedly

And yes, it did work. My finder is now back to normal. And to begin with I could actually see all of my files, photos and everything. I connected my external hdd to do a quick backup, but suddenly all my files disappeared one at a time. Quite annoying seeing them slowly disappear before your eyes...

Soo, I now have a nicely working finder, but no files. Guess that will teach me to do backups more regularly. I guess there are ways of recovering data, but I have already spend too much time on this, and I can live with a lesson learned, I guess.

Thanks for all your help :)
 

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