Changed name of "home" folder, then lost all user settings

recently bought my computer second hand from a friend. i right clicked on the home folder and changed it's name to mine, restarted, and now i no longer have access to my iphoto directory and my itunes library. i've tried changing the home folder back to what i believe it was before and restarting the computer...but i've had no luck getting my settings back. unfortunately, i think i may have forgotten the original home folder name. can someone help me recover it?

Not recommended!
This may help:
Apparent 'Loss' of Home Folder:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107854

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Changed name in home folder - all files gone

i wanted to change the name of my home folder so i right clicked it and renamed it to something else. now all my pictures, music, and documents have disspeared. when i open iphoto and itunes everything is gone. i've found a folder with the original name inside the users folder of macintosh HD, but my files aren't there either. can anyone help?

Hello, Tommdog.
This link might be of help you.
Mac OS X 10.3, 10.4 or later: Return to default desktop, apparent "loss" of home directory
No Alibi.

How to change name on Home folder?

I have an Apple iBook PPC G4 1.33 GHz running Leopard OS X version 10.5.8 and with 1 GB Memory. I just purchased this machine, which is in excellent condition, but I have a problem. It is not earthshattering and doesn't threaten the life of the machine in any way, but it is my machine and I would like the Home directory to reflect that.
The name in the System Preferences for Administrator is "gdavies", which is myself, but the Home Folder in the Finder sidebar is named "macuser". I went in as root user and came close to complete disaster, but got out in time. Having me named as administrator in Accounts but not on the Home directory is unusual. If both were called "macuser" I believe I could fix it, but this requires a greater level of expertise than I have.
Any ideas how to make home folder read "gdavies"? I just bought this iBook and it came with the Home folder named as "macuser". I changed the computer's name in "Sharing" in system prefs and I believe I may have changed the name in the Accounts. I know I should not have done it that way, but it doesn't help changing it back.
When I open the Users folder in the Mac HD there are there folders, one called "gdavies" with 10 items, most empty, such as desktop, downloads and so on, though dropbox is there.
The next folder is the house icon for the Home directory named "macuser" with 38 items and is the working folder. Then there is a folder called "shared", which contains no items.
How do I change the Home directory name in the Finder window sidebar to "gdavies'?

Kappy, you are indeed working overtime to help me and I just want you to know how appreciative I am.
Now, I shall take your answer step by step.
1. Log into Accounts using the admin password for "macuser". That password and the "other" admin password for gadvies is one and the same. However, done.
2. Click on Login Options, done - verify gdavies has admin status - done - answer "yes, gadvies has admin status".
3. Turn off Auto login - done.
4. Logged out then logged into "gdavies".
5. Returned to Accounts pane authenticating with "gdavies" password - done. But remember that the admin password is one and the same for "macuser" and "gdavies". Now, I did *not* set it up like that. It just seemed to happen. do I :- ) or do I :- ( ???
6. Select "macuser" account and using Login options delete. Select the option to remove completely.
I am sorry Kappy, but this pesky "macuser" sits in the home directory without any account in Accounts. So there is no "macuser" account to delete.
I went through all the motions and I was sort of hoping that a "macuser" account would *appear* in the Accounts pane beneath the Guest account so that I could delete it, but no such luck. You know, sometimes things like that do happen.
Thanks a heap for the try, Kappy, I do appreciate you exercising on my behalf "those little grey cells" as Hercule Poirot would say - my favorite Private Eye (Agatha Christie).
Cheers, Gareth

I Renamed Home Folder and lost all settings, jpgs, mp3s, photos etc. HELP!

First off, have a MacBook, 2.4GHz Intel Core Duo w/4GBs of RAM OS 10.5.8
I followed what I thought were proper procedures to change the name of the Home Folder from "macbook" to "rocki"
I followed the instructions at Mac OS X v10.6 and earlier: How to change user account name or home directory name
For Mac OS X 10.5 or later
1. Enable the root user.
2. Log in as root.
3. Navigate to the /Users folder.
4. Select the Home folder with the short name you want to change, and rename it just like you would rename any folder. Keep in mind that the shortname must be all lowercase, with no spaces, and only contain letters.
At this point I skipped steps 5 & 6 Since I already had a user named the name I wanted "Rocki" I thought I didn't need to do this. So went onto Steps 7-9, and NO everything was NOT there.
5. Use the Accounts pane in System Preferences to create a new user with the Account name or Short Name that you used in the previous step.
6. Click OK when "A folder in the Users folder already has the name 'account name'. Would you like to use that folder as the Home folder for this user account?" Note: This will correct the ownership of all files in the Home folder, and avoid permissions issues with the contents.
7. Choose Log Out from the Apple menu.
8. Log in as the newly created user. You should be able to access all of your original files (on the desktop, in Documents, and in the other folders of this Home).
9. After verifying that your data is as expected, you can delete the original user account via the Accounts pane of System Preferences. At this point I skipped step 10 b/c nothing was there as usual.
10. Disable the root user.
All my data and settings were not there. So I went back logged in as Root, navigated to the Users folder, and saw that there were two folders, one said "macbook" even though I previously just named it and there was also another folder named "rocki" there. Seeing two folders and wanting to return back to normal I deleted that "rocki" folder, I had just created, and logged back out of root and logged back into the only user I had, which was also named "rocki" which is the admin and the user that had all my files and settings originally before I tried to change the name of the home folder. And no change, everything is gone and missing.
To clarify, originally, I had a home folder named MacBook and a user named Rocki. Everything was cool and worked great! But I wanted to change that home folder name to match the user name. Whoops!
What can I do to go back to normal?!?!?!!?!? Please help me!! I'm so screwed. If I can't go back to normal, how do I find all the missing files and what not?!?
Thanks so much in advance!

Apparent 'Loss' of Home Folder:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107854

Giving away G5, need to change name of "home" folder

I'm giving my G5 to my grandson and have deleted most of my files. I've successfully renamed the computer, but the home folder still bears my name. What are my options? I don't want to to a clean install, as I want to give him all my software, some bookmarks, etc.

Create a new user account in his name and a temporary password. Give it admin status. Log into the new account and delete your old account.

How to change/apply new home folder path to 350+ users?

quick intro:
...had a screwy server, planned a rebuild.
added all active users to a specific group.
Exported said group, exported ALL users, exported anything I could think of!
Have vanilla built 10.4.10 server, few teething probs with a DNS glitch, think I'm over it...
not 100 percent sure, but 4 users I've tested appear to be working.
imported specific group, didnt show any members.
Had to import ALL users before they populated, unfortunatley ALL users appear to have active accounts, only want specific group active
(was I expecting to much?)
In a bid to tidy up home dirs, correct privelages etc.
is there a simple way to apply the same privs to hundreds of folders rather than selecting each one?
I basically want <user> as the owner, <admin> as the group, everyone else none.
Also need to change/apply a new home dir path to 350plus users
What is the easiest way to do this?
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a very tired and frustrated system admin :-\

eeeff wrote:
quick intro:
...had a screwy server, planned a rebuild.
added all active users to a specific group.
Exported said group, exported ALL users, exported anything I could think of!
Have vanilla built 10.4.10 server, few teething probs with a DNS glitch, think I'm over it...
not 100 percent sure, but 4 users I've tested appear to be working.
imported specific group, didnt show any members.
Had to import ALL users before they populated, unfortunatley ALL users appear to have active accounts, only want specific group active
(was I expecting to much?)
Use the Search feature in WGM (upper right icon). If you want to apply a setting to say all users in the group "Teachers" and the GID is 100 then you would search and "Group ID IS 100. Check the box preform a batch edit. Now make any changes you want and save. WGM will prompt you with a list of users the change will apply to. Also if you don't check the box you will see a list of all users in that group, you can use this to delete all the members of another group OR export only the members in a group (highlight them all after a search).
In a bid to tidy up home dirs, correct privelages etc.
is there a simple way to apply the same privs to hundreds of folders rather than selecting each one?
I basically want <user> as the owner, <admin> as the group, everyone else none.
The following terminal command will apply privileges to every folder inside the current folder. Note that the folder name and the short name for the user must match exactly. cd to the directory with home folders first.
sudo for i in `ls`;do chown -R $i $i;done
(cut and paste to reduce the chance of devastating typo
Also need to change/apply a new home dir path to 350plus users
What is the easiest way to do this?
TIA
a very tired and frustrated system admin :-\

Lost all User settings / presets

hi
Using LR 2.2
on MacBook Pro / Leopard 10.5
worked great so far.
just finished a long development session, went through lots of pictures.
After quitting LR I seem to have lost all my user settings, like my development settings, the metadata presets and the export presets.
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thank you
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It would appear that when you "change" this setting, Lr can no longer see the old settings since it's now looking in the wrong place. I would bet that any NEW presets you created AFTER changing to "save with catalog" would be remembered by Lr.
The question is: When changing this setting, is there something that has to be done in order to get the old presets to re-save to the new location? My thinking is that when you change the setting, Lr does not automatically save the presets to the catalog since they're already saved elsewhere -- i.e. it doesn't realize that it has to re-save them again in order to see them the next time Lr is started.
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Change name on "Home" folder or new admin

I just got a Mac at ABT Electronics and it was a open box return with the old OSX on it so they instaled it for me. But since it wasnt purchased by me they got all the names wrong. I want to change the home name but I cant find a way. Would it be easier to just get a whole new admin account and delete this one?

Hi There
I suggest creating a new admin user and deleting the current one as changing the name can cause erratic behaviour, just make sure to move any important files over to the new admin user before deleting the current one.
I also suggest creating a standard account to be used for everyday computing eg. checking email, web browsing etc. and just using the Admin account to install software and updates. This also adds an extra layer of security to your machine.
Hope this helps
J.C

Login Name and Home Folder names don't match

Many months ago I embarked on a mission to clean up a drive which I ported over to another computer and in the process tried to rename the user name but I can't get the home folder to reflect the user's new name.
On launch the computer has the proper user name but the home folder retained the old user name.
Is there a way to correct this?
I am stumped.

Neil
I just wanted to let you know that I will not attempt your procedure yet until my wife has finished her thesis.
I have no reason to believe it will not work but should I make any mistake along the way I would rather have it happen later.
Once I run the procedure I will be back to mark your advice as a solution and answer to my question. So for now I will leave it marked as helpful.
Thanks, I appreciate the quick response and look forward to finally having my wife's iBook consistent in terms of user name, in the meantime the machine is working great!

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changed to linux from windows and lost all my touchscreen and sound

dina6370 wrote:
changed to linux from windows and lost all my touchscreen and sound
Hi,
You need some sorts of driver, please try the following forum:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/
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BH
**Click the KUDOS thumb up on the left to say 'Thanks'**
Make it easier for other people to find solutions by marking a Reply 'Accept as Solution' if it solves your problem.

Just plugged my iphone 5 into my 13" macbook and then lost all power to mac, now mac wont power up at all

just plugged my iphone 5 into my 13" macbook and then lost all power to mac, now mac wont power up at all

Hi Brennahunt,
Thanks for visiting Apple Support Communities.
If your iPhone is not recognized by iTunes for Windows, try these troubleshooting steps first:
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http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1538
If the steps in the article above do not solve the issue, completely remove and reinstall iTunes using the method in this article:
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http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1923
This process should not affect any music or content on your computer, but you may want to
back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive.
When reinstalling iTunes (step 3 in the article above), be sure that you are logged in to your computer as an Administrator:
Make sure you have an administrator account.
To install iTunes or QuickTime, you need to log in as an administrator on the computer. If you're not sure you have an administrator account, you may find this Microsoft article helpful: Windows 7: How do I log on as an administrator?You can refer to the Help documentation from Microsoft, contact your IT department, or visitsupport.microsoft.com for more information.
From:
Issues installing iTunes or QuickTime for Windows
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1926
Best Regards,

I set up iCloud on pc, ipad etc was asked to copy contacts to iCloud and have lost all the settings and groups that they were in for over 2000. Can I get it back?

I have Outlook on my PC and thought it would be smart to have my contact in the Clouds where my ipad, work pc, home pc would be updated etc. So I was asked I though to copy my contacts from Outlook to iCloud. Instead it moved them and in doing so lost all the settings like Categories and reset how they are listed (used first name because have a lot of drs, phds, msws etc) now listed with last name and so I have a lot of people with md as last name. This is an organization list and is about 2000 contacts so having to go back and fix it will be a nightmare and unnecessary work.
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Restore your backup.

Can we change log_buffer parameter online e.g. when all users are working..

Hi,
Can we change log_buffer parameter online e.g. when all users are working.. ???
What is relation between redo buffer in sga and log_buffer parameter ?
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SQL>
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I am hoping your Oracle Consultant know what he's talking about.
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http://download-west.oracle.com/docs/cd/B19306_01/server.102/b14211/memory.htm#sthref654
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FROM V$SYSSTAT
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The value of redo buffer allocation retries should be near zero over an interval. If this value increments consistently, then processes have had to wait for space in the redo log buffer. The wait can be caused by the log buffer being too small or by checkpointing. Increase the size of the redo log buffer, if necessary, by changing the value of the initialization parameter LOG_BUFFER. The value of this parameter is expressed in bytes. Alternatively, improve the checkpointing or archiving process.
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Changed name of "home" folder, then lost all user settings

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