Help! Missing data and folders!

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Crap. I don't know how this happened. But I'm missing some documents, a program installer, and several folders. Some of the folders are also strange looking in Finder--the Movies, Music, and Pictures folders are just plain blue folders versus the special icons.

I'm mostly concerned about the missing documents as they were important. I tried doing a spotlight search and nothing came up. Are they gone forever?

Also, a lot of my preferences have changed (mouse and trackpad settings, for example). The internet cache stuff seems to have been erased as well.

What's going on? I haven't done anything. I reset the PMU a few days ago, but all of this has happened since then.


Never in my life have I lost data on a computer. This is really irritating me.
 
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Update:

I was able to indirectly locate the documents. Spotlight wouldn't find them, but I could find them via the Recent Documents in Word. That's the only way though (I couldn't find them in Open Document). The folder I was keeping the documents cannot be found. However, strangely enough, I can save documents that folder in the Save As menu.

What the heck is going on here?
 
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Are you able to find out the name of the folder your docs are being saved to, and the path to it?
 
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Pulse-8 said:
Are you able to find out the name of the folder your docs are being saved to, and the path to it?

I know the name of the folder. I can save to it via Save As in Word. Otherwise, I can't find it anyway, including when doing a Spotlight search. I appear to be missing another folder as well. Also, what about the icons being messed up?
 
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One thing that I should mention is that I updated Quicktime and iTunes last night per a popup on my desktop (Automatic Updates, maybe). That is the only different thing that I've been doing.
 
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Create a brand new folder in your Docs, then open Word, then open a "recent doc" and "Save As" to the new folder you just made, then close Word and navigate to the file you just saved in the new folder and open it....post back if it works...

You can restore those icons so don't focus too much on that or anything else at the mo', just let's sort out where your docs are....
 
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Pulse-8 said:
Create a brand new folder in your Docs, then open Word, then open a "recent doc" and "Save As" to the new folder you just made, then close Word and navigate to the file you just saved in the new folder and open it....post back if it works...

You can restore those icons so don't focus too much on that or anything else at the mo', just let's sort out where your docs are....

I did what you said and it worked.

I also noticed that I'm actually "missing" a lot of folders--Public, Sites, Shared. I can see them in the Save As menu in Word. Also while I was uploading this picture, I can see the missing folders/files in the Photobucket upload menu.

Like I said before, a LOT of my preferences were changed: Expose, mouse/trackpad, Dock, desktop background, screensaver.

Others weren't: Energy Saving settings, Firewall, etc. Airport also stayed locked on the wireless address thing.


Here are some pictures of my problems:

I can see the missing folders in the Word Saved As menu (and Photobucket Upload):

Picture1.png




This is what Finder shows:

Picture1-1.png
 
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Firstly, I would suggest you open up all the Word docs that are important and Save As to this new folder and any new docs you create I would save to this new folder too.

So, to backtrack....the files exist and can be opened in Word, but if you perform a search using Spotlight they don't show up, unless they have been saved to the new folder in your Docs?

Once you have moved your important files to the new folder, I would consider uninstalling/reinstalling Word.

I'm not savvy enuf to figure out why some folders show up in Word and PhotoBucket but don't show on your HD....

It appears they are still there, but somehow are invisible....this might be sorted out in the wash so to speak.
 
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Pulse-8 said:
Firstly, I would suggest you open up all the Word docs that are important and Save As to this new folder and any new docs you create I would save to this new folder too.

So, to backtrack....the files exist and can be opened in Word, but if you perform a search using Spotlight they don't show up, unless they have been saved to the new folder in your Docs?

Once you have moved your important files to the new folder, I would consider uninstalling/reinstalling Word.

I'm not savvy enuf to figure out why some folders show up in Word and PhotoBucket but don't show on your HD....

It appears they are still there, but somehow are invisible....this might be sorted out in the wash so to speak.


The problem goes much deeper than word. Several other unrelated folders are also missing: Public, Sites, Shared, Downloaded files. I can see them in the Save As menu in Word. Also while I was uploading this picture, I can see the missing folders/files in the Photobucket upload menu. Their contents are also "missing" and can't be found with Spotlight.

Also like I said before, a LOT of my preferences were changed: Expose, mouse/trackpad, Dock, desktop background, screensaver.

Others weren't: Energy Saving settings, Firewall, etc. Airport also stayed locked on the wireless address thing.


Finally, some of the icons are also messed up/missing.
 
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Have you used a Theme Changer recently?

I'm interested to see what happens once your important docs are secure and you uninstall/reinstall Word.
 
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Ok, this is messed up.

I found the files/folders by manually searching for them.

If I go to: Finder->Macintosh HD->Users, there is a folder Jesse (my account name). In that folder are the missing folders as well as normal ones.

How did this get disorganized? How do I get things back to normal?
 
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Pulse-8 said:
Have you used a Theme Changer recently?

I'm interested to see what happens once your important docs are secure and you uninstall/reinstall Word.

I don't even know what Theme Changer is. I have the important docs secured on a USB flash drive.
 
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How many User Accounts are there?

Can you open anything in this folder with Jesse on it?
 
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atomheartmother said:
I don't even know what Theme Changer is. I have the important docs secured on a USB flash drive.

Theme is the look/feel of your desktop and folders....I recently changed my theme for the 1st time and had to create my email account again and lost some emails.

Finder>Macintosh HD>Users>Jesse is the location where you would expect to find your stuff, so there's no probs there....

Are you relatively new to Macs?
 
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Pulse-8 said:
How many User Accounts are there?

Can you open anything in this folder with Jesse on it?

Only one user account (Jesse). I can see and open all files and folders in Jesse.
 
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Pulse-8 said:
Theme is the look/feel of your desktop and folders....I recently changed my theme for the 1st time and had to create my email account again and lost some emails.

Finder>Macintosh HD>Users>Jesse is the location where you would expect to find your stuff, so there's no probs there....

Are you relatively new to Macs?

Yes, I'm relatively new to Macs, but I know that stuff was moved and disorganized and that something is messed up.

On the left panel of Finder, when I click the User icon (which used to be Jesse), only the following icons are in the folder: Desktop, Documents, Library. It used to have Downloaded Files, Movies, Music, Pictures, Public, and Sites folders in it. They are not in there now.

Under the Documents icon on the left panel of Finder, I am missing the folder with the important docs.


All those folders that are missing can be accessed by doing the following:

Clicking Mac HD (upper left panel of Finder)->Users->Jesse


Also, Spotlight cannot locate any of the files in the "missing" folders (the ones that can only be located as stated just above). Shouldn't Spotlight be able to find anything? It could yesterday.

Finally, when I tried to change the name of the User icon (on the left panel of Finder) to Jesse, it said that the name was already taken. This leads me to believe that all the "missing" folders are there, but I just can't see them.




These are the "missing" folders that could only be located by the alternate method above (by manually going through the Mac HD):

Picture1-2.png




Some more photos. In the next, shouldn't there be more folders; shouldn't Music, Movies, Pictures, and Documents folders be in here?


Picture4.png





There were definately more folders under User (which used to be called Jesse):

Picture2.png




There used to be another folder in here with my important docs:

Picture3.png




Sorry, I don't have before photos, but it's different now. I don't recall changing anything.
 
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Jesse, great pics....

Now, go to Macintosh HD>User Accounts> and drag and drop Jesse onto just below where it says User in the left pane.

Post when this is done and leave the User icon alone for the meantime.

Jesse is back where it should be.

Your user account folder will still be in Macintosh HD>User Accounts but don't worry about that, it's the default setting.

Jesse, it looks like your user account is corrupt.

Below are some links to bring you up to speed with things:

http://www.macfixitforums.com/showf...78688&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=31&fpart=1

http://www.macfixitforums.com/showf...70344&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=31&fpart=1

http://www.macworld.com/2005/01/features/preventmacdisasters/index.php
 
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Pulse-8 said:
Jesse, great pics....

Now, go to Macintosh HD>User Accounts> and drag and drop Jesse onto just below where it says User in the left pane.

Post when this is done and leave the User icon alone for the meantime.

Jesse is back where it should be.

Your user account folder will still be in Macintosh HD>User Accounts but don't worry about that, it's the default setting.

Jesse, it looks like your user account is corrupt.

Below are some links to bring you up to speed with things:

http://www.macfixitforums.com/showf...78688&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=31&fpart=1

http://www.macfixitforums.com/showf...70344&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=31&fpart=1

http://www.macworld.com/2005/01/features/preventmacdisasters/index.php


OK, I did what you said about moving the Jesse folder (just below the User icon in the left pane), and all it did was move the user icon to the bottom of the list, below pictures.

I'll take a look at those links.
 
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atomheartmother said:
OK, I did what you said about moving the Jesse folder (just below the User icon in the left pane), and all it did was move the user icon to the bottom of the list, below pictures.

Post back with any progress or if you need help...
 
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Pulse-8 said:
Post back with any progress or if you need help...

As a note, when I was talking about the User icon in the left pane of Finder, I was referring to the Home icon (that's what it's called, right?).


Anyway, I've done everything in that MacWorld article and nothing really has seemed to change. Everything's kind of moved around and the icons are messed up. On the upside, Spotlight seems to recognize the previously "missing" files that it used to not be able to do. Also the Home icon (what I referred to as User before) has been replaced with a generic folder name Jesse. I don't know when or how that happened.

So is there anyway to get everything back to the way that it was yesterday?
 

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