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

[cradom]

I was afraid you would want that.
It's very possible but can get complicated.
You need to know exactly what you want to copy.
You sure about this?

 

[sammsousa]

i was also wondering, after entering
sudo cp -R sammsousa /Volumes/'TOSHIBA EXT'/sammsousa
would i have everything copied and would then be ready to do a clean install of the os? because, tommorow, i could reformat my friends extHD and then i could just run that one comand... i would need to wait one more day but might be easier overall for me to do. specially since you say it can get complicated, i wouldnt want to leave anything out

edit: its like 11pm here, otherwise i would still do it today

 

[MacInWin]

Grasshopper here: What would happen if, now that Library is empty, sort of, cp'd samms library to libraryKeep, for example, then mv sammsousa to samms? That would overwrite samms/Library, but at the end of the mv, we cp libraryKeep back to samms/Library. mv won't need as much space or time to execute and it just might work. (Grasshopper returns to the corner...)


EDIT: meant to say "sort of, we cp'd"

 

[cradom]

After everything's copied, and you're sure you got everything, you can reinstall the system.
After that's done and set up and updated etc. you can copy everything back to your working user folder.
Actually, before you copy back you can change ownership of all the files on the external and then just copy things you want using Finder.

 

[cradom]

That wont work Jake because he's using that Home and removing stuff from Library and copying things from another use folder while he's logged in can REALLY screw things up.
I don't think you can change the Library's name while logged in anyway.

 

[MacInWin]

Ah, you are going for the move/reinstall approach. I was thinking OS X ran ok in samms account, so we just move sammsousa to samms and then nuke sammsousa's account. He can then just use samms going forward. Either way works, but his external drive may or may not hold everything. The internal is 99%+ full 1TB and the external was a partially used 500 GB drive.

 

[MacInWin]

That wont work Jake because he's using that Home and removing stuff from Library and copying things from another use folder while he's logged in can REALLY screw things up.
I don't think you can change the Library's name while logged in anyway.

OK, got that. But doesn't cp make a copy, so the name change is immaterial? It's the overwrite of Library from samms that is the killer, not the cp, I think.

 

[cradom]

I'm hoping most of the 'stuff' using space is in Applications.

 

[MacInWin]

Could another way be to create a third account, Admin privileges, and then do the mv from sammsousa to samms from there? That would let us cp Library to Librarykeep and then back? (I do have a twisted mind, as you can see.)

 

[MacInWin]

I'm hoping most of the 'stuff' using space is in Applications.

There is that. We'll see how the cp to external goes!

 

[cradom]

If you want to try something, and it works, you can copy whatever you want using Finder to the external.
In the /Users folder type:
sudo chown -R samms sammsousa
This should change ownership of everything in the sammsousa folder to samms letting you do everything in Finder because you now own everything in there as samms.

 

[sammsousa]

macinwin, i think the move/reinstall approach might be more practical since its less work in terminal and ive been wanting to do a fresh install for a while because i have already way to much stuff installed i dont need.
well i think i'll do it tommorow then. i've only had a mac for alittle over a year, i completly forgot that an external HD has to reformated to be used with either osx or win. i just prefer doing the safe aproach lol

cradom, if i close terminal now and run the same comands tommorow should it work the same way? or should i not close it at all?

 

[MacInWin]

OK, grasshopper is back to the corner again...

sammsousa, if you can find a great big empty drive, this will be much easier, as I've said before.

Dinner bell just rang...grasshopper is off to graze...

 

[cradom]

You should be able to pick up right where you left off tomorrow. Just don't try to log in to the bad account.
Night Jake!

 

[sammsousa]

HOLY CRAP!!!! cradom that worked
i can now access everything from the old account through finder. so cool!!

 

[lclev]

Still lurking and learning here...... I get all the commands for terminal because there is enough similarity between DOS and Unix commands plus what I remember from my Linux class, that I understand what you are doing.

Actually, I dug out my old linux notes to follow what you are doing. I had to look up the switches.

Lisa

 

[cradom]

sammsousa, glad you got it. Now you can copy just what you need to the external. Just try not to forget anything.
Then you can 'Nuke and Pave" © the system and start over. Just wish I'd thought of that about 20 posts ago

 

[cradom]

Lisa, if you're interested, this might be helpful: https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/40476/manopen
Also this: http://rixstep.com/4/0/clix/

 

[sammsousa]

'©' lol!! i def wont forget anything, through terminal i really could have, but not like this.
you could have not rememberd it at all, so im still happy about it!
as far as a fresh install is concerned, do you think there is something special i need to be worried about? i assume most of the articles out there cover that topic pretty well...

 

[cradom]

You do have an install disk/USB stick right? What OS are you installing?