iMac Lion lost everything!

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I have had a new iMac that came pre-installed with Lion for about 4 months or so. No major problems with it. I was working yesterday afternoon and noticed my iMac was a little slow. Being the end of the day, I just shut everything down and restarted. When I came in this morning, I logged in to my account and it was like my iMac was fresh out of the box. Everything was back to factory settings and all of my documents, applications, pictures, etc... were gone. Thank goodness for Time Machine! I just restored from yesterday afternoon and brought everything back....but still! Has anyone else encountered problems like this? I have been working with Macs for over 10 years and have never had anything like this happen. I've had software problems and hard drive crashes, but never an unexpected wipe like this. I'm about to call Apple and pay the fee to see what the problem is, but I wanted to throw this out there first.
 

RavingMac

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Strange!
Let us know what you find out.
 
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That is crazy. How awful. Hope you get it sorted, haven't a clue what would have happened.

I am extremely dubious about Lion. I currently have a Macbook Pro which came with it. I also have a black macbook from 2008, which is actually FASTER on tasks like photoshop, adobe lightroom and browsing the net.

Considering putting snow leopard on and seeing if it improves.

It feels to me Apples quality control has vanished. This is my third mac, right now i'd go back to a PC in an instant, if I hadn't spent £1800 on a new mac!
 
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it did strange..

Thank god you got you file back.

Please let us know how the Apple scientists explain feeback about it.

I have a MBP with the Lion OS, I don't want my book will make my file disappear...
 

chscag

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I'm about to call Apple and pay the fee to see what the problem is, but I wanted to throw this out there first.

Time to buy Apple Care. Then you won't have to pay the fee to talk with them. ;)
 
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Wasn't my decision not to have Apple Care. My bosses bought the iMacs and decided they didn't need it. They're paying for the call!
 

dtravis7


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just one question, the user account was not renamed or the users folder?
 
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No. Everything looked the same logging in. There are a few different accounts on here and they were all listed with the proper picture. Nothing looked amiss until I logged in. I logged into the other accounts and they were all back to factory reset too.
 
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Just got off the phone with Apple. The guy doing tech support said he has never heard of anything like this and he has been doing tech support since 2004. He's seen computers go back to factory resets, but never one that has kept the accounts and reset them. His advice was to just keep working, if everything is working fine now....but if it happens again, re-install Lion and pull everything back from Time Machine.

I stumped Apple! I should at least get a t-shirt or something for this.
 
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Just got off the phone with Apple. The guy doing tech support said he has never heard of anything like this and he has been doing tech support since 2004. He's seen computers go back to factory resets, but never one that has kept the accounts and reset them. His advice was to just keep working, if everything is working fine now....but if it happens again, re-install Lion and pull everything back from Time Machine.

I stumped Apple! I should at least get a t-shirt or something for this.



T-shirt can't get your problem away...Apple need to alter their tech scientist, I think.
 

BrianLachoreVPI


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That is incredibly bizarre. Does anyone else use your computer?
 
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Lost everything

This just happened to me!
I couldn't see any files in my sent mail, so I restarted and now it is Tabula Raza - like it came out of teh box. I have my applications but ALL OF MY DOCUMENTS ARE GONE!

I guess I'll try my time machine/ time capsule, but I'd love to get the MAC boys input on this without having to pay $170 just to help them with a seriouse OS bug!

To be continued! (working now from my old Dell Laptop... OMG)

Symptoms:
All Data GOne
All Downloads Gone
Boot up screen is original out of the box with no applicaiton icons.
User Installed Applications are correctly listed but launch as if for the first time. All registration and license info is gone.
Mail won't launch.
Safari forgot all my favorites, links etc. and is defaulting to the apple page.
Finder is not showing anything but applications and airdrop and allmyfiles (empty allmyfiles).
Time Capsule andPrinter are still connected (printer connected to time capsule wifi).

I'm paying the $169 to find out what happened before I pull the trigger on Time Machine and maybe make things worse.
Call, Wait 5 minutes, pay $169, wait 10 minutes, Describe symptoms to tech who never heard of this and passes me up to senior tech - holding for senior tech... 20 minutes ..Still holding

Got tech - tried boot with teh Shift key down but now System preferences won't launch so we are restoring the entire OS and Data from Time Capsule (boot with Option key down) - I'll post again when that's done several hours from now.. OMG....
 

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