New posts

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="MacInWin" data-source="post: 1909916" data-attributes="member: 396914">The challenge is mostly due to macOS security. macOS is based on a derivative of an operating system called linux, in which security is handled by the concept of "User" who has "permissions" on some files and not on others. Technically, no user can open any other user's files. So, a single computer can have multiple users, each with their own login account and each of whom can see their own files, but not the files of any other user of the system. What the "blocked" icon shows is that the account you were logged in was NOT the account that "owned" those folders. Ownership can be changed by an administrator, and access to another user's files/folders can be changed by an administrator of the system. macOS requires at least one account to be an administrator account, which is how I suspect you set up your default account when you first created/reinstalled the system.  However, the username you use to log in is NOT what the system actually uses, so even if you kept the same name for your new account as you had in the old system, the OS knows they are different, hence the "barred" icons on the folders.OK, that bit was necessary to address your questions:From where you are right now, restoring is going to be a pain in the ***. By the mucking about you have already done, you have destroyed the user account that created and owned those folders, which is why you are having to provide a password to copy them. That password is an admin password, which has authority to copy other user's files, but the copy process does not change the owner, so the files/folders on the external are still in that old user name. In addition, I noted in your screenshot that you have an Applications folder and another folder for "Creative Cloud," which is Adobe. I can't see much more because you are in icon mode in Finder, but just those folders are going to add pain to the process. Some of the applications in the Applications folder may run well if you just copy the folder back into your system after doing a reinstall, but some, probably most, won't the same way, if at all, because of various configuration files and properly lists (plist files), that they may have distributed over the system area of the drive that you have already erased in the various installations. Plus, Adobe is notoriously fickle about changing sytem/owners of their products, to the extent that even with a valid installation DVD, they have refused to register older products and insisted that the user obtain a new license, which now is only based on subscription, not purchase. If you have Microsoft software, Microsoft is similar, although not as draconian as Adobe. One thing that might make this slightly less painful is if you have a TM backup of the system from BEFORE all the adventure started, i.e., from before the upgrade to Big Sur. If you have that, you can use TM to restore your account to a newly installed system and it will "fix" the ownership problems for you.Manual copying will work for YOUR files--documents, spreadsheets, etc.--that you kept in Documents, or on your Desktop, but you will have to go through a process to change your access once the new system is installed, you have created a new account and copied the files back manually. Before we talk about how to do that, get back to us with your reaction to this post.I stick with my suggestion that the best approach is a clean install, where the SSD is totally erased and rebuilt, but tell us about your TM status and thoughts before we talk about how to proceed.Bottom line: It's not pretty. Can be done, but a real PITA.</blockquote>

Verification: Name this item. 🍎