Wiped..

[jonnie]

Today I turned on my MacBook Pro to find all the settings had been restored to default and all my documents missing..

The last thing I did before I shut down my laptop was install the newest version of Firefox, and I also had a CD in from Computer Arts Magazine that has some trial programs on it and some files to help with tutorials that are inside the magazine.

My desktop background was changed back to the one it came with, the dock was bigger and had magnification turned off (possibly what it is like as standard?) and all my files are missing, including my iTunes library which is now blank.

Does anyone know what could have caused this and how to get back any missing documents and files?

Luckily for me I finished university yesterday so don't need any of them anymore, but still.. it's fairly annoying.

Thanks in advance.

 

[NanoBite]

Hi jonnie & welcome to the forum.

Check this location for your documents, please:

Macintosh HD -> Users

There's a hope that your documents may still be accessible.

 

[jonnie]

Ah yes, it's all there!

Thanks. Do you know what could have caused it to happen?

Also when I started my laptop up just now I noticed it was a little slower than usual. Sometimes my MacBook Pro is slower on start-ups than usual but is fast again later. What could be causing this, or is this normal?

Thanks again!

Edit: Oh yeah, and how can I restore all my documents to where they were before, do I just simply drag and drop them? Or should they still be in the "Macintosh HD > Users > Me...." as well? Cause if I move them to where they were before they're no longer in the users folder.

 

[NanoBite]

Ah yes, it's all there!

Thanks. Do you know what could have caused it to happen?

Also when I started my laptop up just now I noticed it was a little slower than usual. Sometimes my MacBook Pro is slower on start-ups than usual but is fast again later. What could be causing this, or is this normal?

Thanks again!

Edit: Oh yeah, and how can I restore all my documents to where they were before, do I just simply drag and drop them? Or should they still be in the "Macintosh HD > Users > Me...." as well? Cause if I move them to where they were before they're no longer in the users folder.

You don't know how happy I am that your personal data is still there ... I'm not sure what caused this, but I have seen it before. I think your User Account has somehow become corrupted.

You might have to create a new account, and then drop all your docs into the Drop Box contained in your Public Folder. This is the usual way to share things on a Mac.

Then I'd download and run OnyX. It's a maintenance app that will clean out your Mac and optimise it, hopefully fixing up any bugs that might have caused this.

Just a tip; it's safer to have an Administrator acct and a Standard acct on your Mac. Use the Standard acct for everyday stuff, and the Admin acct for installing/running OnyX.