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Apple Computing Products:
macOS - Apps and Programs
Disk Utility causes problems?
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<blockquote data-quote="Al.Pothoof" data-source="post: 1075411" data-attributes="member: 162872"><p>chas_m, you nailed it!</p><p></p><p>I got home Friday night, booted the Mac into safe mode and started rooting around on the disk. I found that the User folder had 3 subfolders: Public, <wife’s user ID> and 0. A cursory examination of the 0 subfolder left me fairly certain it was my wife’s original folder.</p><p></p><p>I spent most of Saturday backing up the subfolders labeled 0 and <wife’s user ID>. The 0 folder had a number of files with “special” permissions, which resisted being copied from a higher folder although there seemed to be no problem copying them individually. There were also a surprising (at least to me) number of files which the copy command identified as “in use”; these had to be tracked down individually and unlocked. As we had another thunderstorm moving in, I called it a night after I got everything backed up.</p><p></p><p>Sunday morning I booted the system and tried something I didn’t really expect to work: I renamed the <wife’s user ID> subfolder to 1, then renamed the 0 folder to <wife’s user ID>. I didn’t expect it to work as I was logged in to that account but, apparently, OS X doesn’t have a problem with renaming a folder its working out of.</p><p></p><p>Then I rebooted the system.</p><p></p><p>VIOLA!</p><p></p><p>Wallpaper back to normal and about a gazillion icons on the desktop. Loaded up Safari and the bookmarks were there. Called my wife over and she verified that the desktop was looking the way it should. She played around a few minutes and said most things looked normal but there were some customizations in the Finder window that weren’t back. She said that was no big thing.</p><p></p><p>At this point, nothing has been deleted and I have a full backup of these 2 subfolders. I’ve told her to not only do her normal work this week but to poke around a bit and see if anything else seems like it hasn’t been restored.</p><p></p><p>I don’t think she’ll find anything missing, except perhaps some customizations like the Finder window but, if she does, it should still be available. If everything is back to normal, I’ll get rid of the new folders this weekend and clean up the disk.</p><p></p><p>Still not sure what got fat-fingered to cause this issue in the first place but at least it wasn’t terminal.</p><p></p><p>Thanks to everyone who helped me out by taking a look at the issue..</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Al.Pothoof, post: 1075411, member: 162872"] chas_m, you nailed it! I got home Friday night, booted the Mac into safe mode and started rooting around on the disk. I found that the User folder had 3 subfolders: Public, <wife’s user ID> and 0. A cursory examination of the 0 subfolder left me fairly certain it was my wife’s original folder. I spent most of Saturday backing up the subfolders labeled 0 and <wife’s user ID>. The 0 folder had a number of files with “special” permissions, which resisted being copied from a higher folder although there seemed to be no problem copying them individually. There were also a surprising (at least to me) number of files which the copy command identified as “in use”; these had to be tracked down individually and unlocked. As we had another thunderstorm moving in, I called it a night after I got everything backed up. Sunday morning I booted the system and tried something I didn’t really expect to work: I renamed the <wife’s user ID> subfolder to 1, then renamed the 0 folder to <wife’s user ID>. I didn’t expect it to work as I was logged in to that account but, apparently, OS X doesn’t have a problem with renaming a folder its working out of. Then I rebooted the system. VIOLA! Wallpaper back to normal and about a gazillion icons on the desktop. Loaded up Safari and the bookmarks were there. Called my wife over and she verified that the desktop was looking the way it should. She played around a few minutes and said most things looked normal but there were some customizations in the Finder window that weren’t back. She said that was no big thing. At this point, nothing has been deleted and I have a full backup of these 2 subfolders. I’ve told her to not only do her normal work this week but to poke around a bit and see if anything else seems like it hasn’t been restored. I don’t think she’ll find anything missing, except perhaps some customizations like the Finder window but, if she does, it should still be available. If everything is back to normal, I’ll get rid of the new folders this weekend and clean up the disk. Still not sure what got fat-fingered to cause this issue in the first place but at least it wasn’t terminal. Thanks to everyone who helped me out by taking a look at the issue.. [/QUOTE]
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Disk Utility causes problems?
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