Stuck on Desktop Screen

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PeauxRouge

Guest
Hi there,

I have a customer who had brought in a Mac Powerbook with Mac OS X (Not sure of the specific version). Basically, he was transfering photos to an Ext. HD and accidentally copied to the Desktop. Now the system is stuck in a cycle of the photos copying to the desktop, and they are all covering the HD icon. We can't click anything aside from the wireless/time and date icons at the top. We can not access the Finder at all. If you click on file, nothing happens. We are just getting the little rainbow swirly going around all the time. If you reboot, it starts the process all over again. If you Safe Boot, it does the same thing. I have tried to force close the finder, or relaunch it, and again, it starts the process over again. Any ways around this? Thanks for your time.
 
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Your Mac's Specs
15" Powerbook G4 • 24" iMac • iPhone 3Gs
If you know your way around the command line, you could boot from the Install disks and open Terminal from the DVD and delete the files that are causing the trouble.
 
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PeauxRouge

Guest
Hmmmm, it seems there are thousands of files that are repeatedly being copied. That may take a looooong time. Anyway to do that in a batch???
 
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PeauxRouge

Guest
And I don't think he wants to lose these files as they are pictures he has taken. Think I could firewire this HD to another mac and move the files?
 
Joined
Aug 27, 2005
Messages
2,406
Reaction score
210
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63
Location
Fayetteville, AR
Your Mac's Specs
15" Powerbook G4 • 24" iMac • iPhone 3Gs
I'm fairly sure that Target Disk Mode is read only, that is, you wouldn't be able to delete files.

Since they're images, they most likely all have the same prefix, like DSCXXXX. I'd try to open Terminal from the Install Disk and using:

sudo rm -f ~/Desktop/DSC*

To remove all image files from the desktop. With "DSC*" replacing whatever prefix the images have.

EDIT: Sorry, just read your post about him wanting to keep the pictures. Attach an external harddrive and do this:

sudo cp ~/Desktop/DSC* /Volumes/ExternalHDNameHere/Pictures/DSC

Then, once you make sure you've copied them, do the command mentioned earlier.
 
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PeauxRouge

Guest
Hey again,

Thanks for all your time. I managed this on my own before I got your post back, though I am sure your option would work, too. What I did is what I was thinking above. Removed the HD, hooked it up externally to another Mac, accessed the Desktop and moved all the files into a folder on the desktop, which seemed to work great, the Powerbook will now work fine and no recurring image files. Hurray. Thanks again for your timely posts.
 
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sursuciofla

Guest
Thanks for following up your post. A lot of people do not. This may help others in the future. :black:
 

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