Operating System "Reset" Itself

My Desktop iMac did something I have never seen any other computer to do; The system restored itself. I turned on the computer and everything started up as it would normally. Then however, I noticed that all of my icons on my dock were re-arranged and the software I had installed (Office 04' and CS3) previously had been removed from the dock. After re-docking my icons and cleaning up the others, I noticed that I had lost all files in Bridge (photos). I then went to Safari and the "Home Page" was at the "apple start-up" page.

I experienced nothing abnormal the night before, powered the machine on today, and wham, the system looked like it had on Day 1. The only interesting thing that really baffled me was that my software remained on the computer, but the files were removed and everything reset. Even more strange, the system was fine the night before and "gone" when I opened it up today. How does this happen?

Try checking the logs using the Console application in the Utilities folder.
They are time stamped, so may provide some answers.
(definately odd...)

You renamed your home folder....

To restore it

bobtomay said:

You renamed your home folder....

To restore it

Click to expand...

Thanks man! I found the folder, but am still unsure what they mean by "short name" and "renaming the old directory". The reason is that I must have renamed the home directory folder, but if I put "_new" after that, what's the old directory?

The short name is the name of your home folder.

Ex. your old home folder was named "Bob" and you renamed it "Paul"

In the Users folder, highlight the home folder "Paul", then press "enter"...
rename it "Paul_new" and press enter... don't do this until you figure out which is your old folder....

Now highlight the folder named "Bob" (it is possible this folder's name was changed by the system, so you're looking for a folder that is not a current user on the computer and is not the "Shared" folder - you can verify that you have found the correct folder by navigating into the directory and checking to see if this is where your old documents, etc. are located), then press "enter"....
rename it (I am assuming the correct short name would be the new one ...) "Paul" and press enter and reboot.

Hope it's clearer than mud now. That should be correct, have never renamed my home folder though.

It should be, but for some reason I am failing! Ok so:

In my "users" folder I have "Bob" as the home icon and "Jane" as the folder icon. "Jane" contains all of the important info that has been "misplaced". I have tried putting both _new on the ends of both, while renaming the opposite with the same name and without the "_new" and it keeps creating another folder that I name the "house icon" under when I log back on. For instance:

When I name "Jane" as the home icon and "Jane_new" which has the important data and restart, I find that the home icon keeps turning back to "Bob" and I now have an extra folder with "Jane" on it. Which leaves me with "Jane_new", "Jane" (One that was created after log out/log in), and "Bob" )which is the home icon).

Ugh.

It should be add the "_new" to the one that is the current "house" icon.
Rename the folder with all your stuff to the same name as the house icon but without the "_new".


(Well, just tried some experimenting on my system with an extra user account, although I have Leopard.
And the good news is, Leopard will not allow changing the name of your home folder in Finder.
The name can be changed under Accounts in System Preferences in Leopard, and this will correspondingly change the name of the home folder while keeping all your stuff.)

Alright, well I hate to keep bothering you bobtomay, but here is what I have:

Under "users" I have the "home icon" as Paul. I also have the "folder icon" (which contains all of my misplaced info" as Bob.

Under "system preferences" and "accounts", I have "Bob" as my account name and "Paul" as my short name. However, I can only change the "account name" via the unlock icon, but can't seem to change the "short name" b/c it is "faded out" (unable to highlight).

Now all the account name changing does is change my login name. An FYI, I had changed something somewhere in this previous to the data loss, so I know we are close.

Thanks again for all the help man. I really do appreciate it!

I think it should be in "Finder", in the Users folder

It should be add the "_new" to the one that is the current "house" icon.
Rename the folder with all your stuff to the same name as the house icon but without the "_new".

so you would change 'Paul' to 'Paul_new'
and change 'Bob' to 'Paul'
and then reboot

have the same problem

I have been having this same problem! Its so agrevating because EVERYTHING gets reset---settings, calendar, itunes...all of it! I have probably 3-4 "user folders" now - I still dont really understand the solution...I'm going to continue searching