no desktop icons and finder doesnt seem to work...please help

[MacInWin]

"Helper" apps are those apps that claim to do some process easier, or to "improve" performance or some internal OS X process. CleanMyMac is one such. It claims to make it easier to "clean" out unnecessary stuff from your Mac, but had been known to "clean" required files, leading to people think their machine is infected by a virus. Similar apps claim to speed up downloads, play certain videos, defrag the hard drive automatically, etc. None of that is really needed as OS X does that stuff pretty well natively, but people coming from Windows often get these things because in Windows you may actually benefit somehow.

You don't need Anti-virus, so that's a good thing you don't have one.

I don't remember, have you tried booting in Safe mode? That disables all the stuff that is loading at boot up, beyond what we've deleted already. It's dead slow, but lets you get to YOUR account so that we can get past the beachball. To get to Safe mode, here is what Apple says:

Starting up in Safe Mode

Follow these steps to start up into Safe Mode.

Be sure your Mac is shut down.
Press the power button.
Immediately after you hear the startup sound, press and hold the Shift key. The Shift key should be pressed as soon as possible after startup, but not before the startup sound.
Release the Shift key when you see the Apple logo appear on the screen.
After the Apple logo appears, it may take longer than usual to reach the login screen. This is because your computer is performing a directory check as part of Safe Mode.

To leave Safe Mode, restart your computer without pressing any keys during startup.

 

[sammsousa]

macinwin, thanks for you continuous responses!!! i really apreciate it!
yes i did try it before. i tryed it again now, because i disabled all the apps at startup, but without luck. even in safe mode i have to force a shut down...

 

[MacInWin]

So you are saying that even with a safe boot you get the beachball immediately? If so, about all I can think to do is to reinstall the operating system. And if you don't have a backup and can't get control to make a backup, you are going to be at risk of losing all your files.

Have you tried just letting it spin away to see if it will shut down in ANY time? I mean let it just go, even if it takes hours to eventually shut down. That would be better than forcing it off with the power button, and it may allow whatever is causing the beachball to finish and release.

 

[sammsousa]

not immediately. but i get nothing for a long time and then the beachball.
i havent tried that yet... the may i let it go was for a bout 30/45 mins.
i reinstalled the os once, but in that way where all my files stay the same. i really dont want to loose all my files. is it not possible to back them up from the other admin account? before reinstalling os?

 

[MacInWin]

Can you open Finder, or does that trigger the beachball? Can you get to the Utilities folder? Can you see your own files? I ask because if you have a chance before the beachball shows up to see those files you may be able to rescue them.

 

[harryb2448]

Assume you did a simple upgrade smmsousa?

Personally a big fan of a format and clean install of each new operating system. Burn OS to a thumb drive prior to running the instaler, boot from that, go into Erase and then install, and migrate everything over. Of course you do need a backup, and I prefer SuperDuper.

 

[MacInWin]

Yeah, Harry, that's the best way, but in the original post he indicated he had no backups. So at this point we're looking for a way to salvage what he's got. My thinking is that IF he can control Finder for a few minutes, we can move his important files to Shared and then move from there to an account that works properly. Once everything is safe and moved, he can then simply delete the offending account and live with the new one. I had to do that once and it worked well for me.

 

[sammsousa]

in the main account it isnt possible to open any folder. i just checked on the second account i did and it says that files from the main account cant be accessed form there. is there anyway to deactivate/bypass it?

btw..im really pissed of for not having my backups in place. first thing ill do once this is handled

 

[MacInWin]

Do you have any external drives? Even a Ram stick might do, depending on how much information you have and how big it is.

 

[sammsousa]

the HD on my mac is 1 TB wich is full. my external hd is 500gb, but i could borrow the rest. but how can i put my data on therE? can i allow it to be accessed from the secondery account?

 

[MacInWin]

I'm working on that aspect. The challenge is that the files belong (system-wise) to your damaged account, not the new one you created, so if "damaged" could access them then "damaged" could move them to "new" account, but I don't know if there is a way for "new" to get to them to copy them. I've invited Craig (cradom) to join us here. He's a wizard at terminal commands. I'm thinking we may need to drop into terminal to make this work. Tell me, can you invoke terminal from the damaged account before beachballs appear?

PS: How FULL is the HD? That may also be part of the problem. OS X wants space, generally 20% of the drive, to operate well. Below that, beachballs...

 

[sammsousa]

terminal opens just fine, i never used it before though...

 

[MacInWin]

OK, that's good news. I don't want you to mess with it. Powerful juju in terminal....Let's wait until Craig reads my email to him and joins in. Could be a bit, we're all volunteers here.

 

[MacInWin]

And again, how full is the HD?

 

[sammsousa]

no problem! again, i definetly apreciate your time for helping me!!
but do you think that using terminal, accessing my files from the second account and then making a clean install is the only option? i thought it was going to be way easier once i saw that the second account worked fine and i realised it was not a hardware problem

 

[sammsousa]

i have like 30 gbs free lol

 

[MacInWin]

And that's one source of beachballs! How much space is available on the 500GB external? We may have to move a bunch of stuff there to get it off the main HD to allow OS X to breathe.

 

[cradom]

How full is the drive? This is IMPORTANT! EDIT: I see my slow typing strikes again!

Easiest way to do this is:
Login to a good account that works
Open Terminal
cd to the bad account - cd /Users/name where name is the home folder of the bad account
sudo cp Documents ~/Documents/docs-old
It will ask for password That's your login password FOR THIS ACCOUNT
You wont see it but it's taking it. What you just did is copy your Documents folder to the new account, into it's Documents folder as a folder named docs-old.
You have I think 5 minutes until it requires the password again. Don't hurry typing in commands. You have plenty of time.
You need to get it right.
sudp cp whatever other docs you need to copy to the new account.
When you're finished, download BatchMod from MacUpdate and run it.
Set all permissions for the old stuff to the new account. Otherwise you wont be able to open anything.

NONE OF THIS WILL WORK IF YOU DON'T HAVE ENOUGH SPACE ON THE DRIVE. HENCE THE FIRST QUESTION.

If you need more help just ask. We can step you through this one thing at a time if need be.

 

[sammsousa]

so you think that me forcing the shut down the night before this happend is unrelated?
it wasnt the first time my HD was this full... there must be around 150 free gbs on my external

 

[sammsousa]

wow crandom, i really did not understand a word you said. please have in mind i never used terminal before. all i can tell you though is that i only have 30 gbs free on my HD