Everything is gone off my hard drive

I got home tonight from being gone for a couple of days. My iMac was off (although I left it sleeping), and when I turned it on, it looked like it did the very first time I plugged it in. There is nothing of mine on the hard drive. No pictures folder, no documents folder, no photos in iPhoto. I don't know what happened, but I really really need to find everything that was on my hard drive, and I'm freaking out a little bit. When I opened Mail, it acted like I was using it for the first time. It's like it's a brand new machine. Please help me!

The operating system looks for a Users folder, in the root directory, and looks for a folder with your username.
When it does not find them it creates new ones which are like new basically empty.
You simply have to put the folder with your username into the newly created user folder if you only have one user set up on the computer.
If you move the username folder (the one with the house icon) in the newly created Users folder into the shared folder you can then move the original username folder back into the Users folder.
If you are prompted to replace you would simply be replacing an empty username folder.

Similar Messages

HT5129 how do i get iPhoto to stop bothering me with Mobile Me Migration windows when everything's already on my hard drive?

how do i get iPhoto to stop bothering me with Mobile Me Migration windows when everything's already on my hard drive?

Click "More Info", not "o.k.".
Then open the iPhoto Preferences "Accounts" tab and remove the "Mobile Me" account, if it is still there.
Quit iPhoto.
Check, if "Mobile Me" is still enabled in the System Preferences > Mobile Me panel (if you still have this panel). if yes, sign out.
Log off and on again.
Test, if iPhoto still is bugging you to transfer your Mobile Me content. If yes, you need to delete your iPhoto Preferences from your User Library.
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iPhoto.plist
And also remove the file
~/Library/Caches/com.apple.iPhoto/mmsunset.plist
from the Caches in the User Library - this file contain the end date of Mobile me.

I am trying to play my digital music off a hard drive onto my home stereo. I would like to know if the mac mini can just hook to my processor and play music through the processor(preamp) on my home stereo speakers?

I currently have a nice home stereo component system. I also have a 500 GB external hard drive loaded with music. I am looking for a way to play the music off this Hard Drive onto my home stereo system. I currently have a WD home entertainment box that I can play movies that I download off the Internet on my TV, of course piped through my home stereo for the sound. I would like to know if the mac-mini could be used in this form also. Just have the HD hooked to it, the TV would become my monitor and the mac mini would play the music ... RANDOMLY ... with the use of iTunes. This of course would be hooked up to the home system with an hdmi cable and the HD hooked up through a USB connection.
Just would like to know if this could work?

Yes. Is the short answer.
You can directly connect the speaker out port of the Mac mini to an input on the AV Receiver which then feeds your speakers. This would be an audio only solution. If you use a TOS-Link connection this will be a pure digital connection ensuring the best quality (important for audiophiles).
You can if you wish connect the video from the Mac mini to the AV Receiver, and if you have a Mac mini with HDMI or a Mini Displayport you can run the audio and video via a single cable. (Older models would use two cables, the aforementioned TOS-Link pus a DVI to HDMI cable.)
If you do connect the video output from the Mac to the AV Receiver you can then display this on your TV, and have as one possibility iTunes displayed with perhaps one of the iTunes visualisers playing along with the music. Another possibility would be to use FrontRow on the Mac.
A different approach would be to have the Mac mini stream over a network to a device e.g. the Sonos Zoneplayer which is then connected to the AV Receiver. An AirPort Express is also able to do this.

I have an iMac running Lion and W7 with boot camp . It has been operating flawlessly until I went to reboot into Mac tonight. Screen went black, and system is unresponsive. I've tried force quitting and turning power off. Hard drive starts but that's it..

I have a 5 month old iMac running Lion and W7 with the latest version of boot camp . It has been operating flawlessly until I went to reboot into Mac tonight. Screen went black, and system is unresponsive. I've tried force quitting and turning power off. Hard drive starts, there's a small amount of drive activity and that's it.

Hi Jane, your info may still be there, look in the Users folder at root of the drive, how many users are there there?
It sounds like this may have happened...
Return to default desktop, apparent "loss" of home directory, (it can happen spontaneously too)...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107854

Will installing mac os 10.6.3 wipe off my hard drive?

Hello
I have a macbook running on a Mac OS X 10.5.8 and want to upgrade it to 10.6.3. I have the operating system disks. I haven't backed up my hard drive. Can I install the new operating system without fear of wiping off my hard drive?
Please only answer if you KNOW FOR SURE...>I don't need anyone to say 'maybe' 'probably'....
Thanks
Chiara

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
I agree with the former poster. It is not a question of if data will be lost, but when. Furthermore, not every piece of software that is compatible with 10.5 is compatible with 10.6. If you don't backup your data, don't come and complain when you have to erase your machine just to downgrade back to 10.5 to regain some sort of compatibility. Read my upgrade FAQ*:
http://www.macmaps.com/upgradefaq.html
If you follow it, you should not have any problems.
- * Links to my pages may give me compensation.

Turning off external hard drive

I just connected a Seagate external 300gb hard drive to my 12 inch Powerbook G4. I am wondering if there is an "order of operations" as far as turning the external hard drive off with the laptop?
The manual is not exactly clear to my understanding. It does mention dragging the external hard drive icon to the trash icon in my dock area but I think that is if I would like to DISCONNECT it from my laptop?
I am GUESSING that I would turn off the hard drive first THEN the laptop? Does anyone know if it matters, I do not want to damage the drive or any info on it.
Any info woul be appreciated, thanks in advance people!

wow, thanks so much for the all the comprehensive info! I appreciate the fact that you guys didn't leave anything out didn't assume anything! It makes things much more clear.
So it sounds like the jist is make sure that if I AM turning the external HD off to make sure I drag the external HD icon on my desktop to the dock FIRST in order to avoid potentially damaging or loosing files.
But what about turning the external HD and laptop ON? Is there also an order? I am assuming the external HD should be turned on first?
It would be nice if the external HD could turn on and off whenever I turn on/off my laptop but I doubt that is a possibility.
thanks again, looking forward to learning more!!!
Powerbook 12 Mac OS X (10.2.x)

Will Upgrading Mac OS X delete the windows off the hard drive?

Will Upgrading Mac OS X delete the windows off the hard drive?

Will Upgrading Mac OS X delete the windows off the hard drive?
If you're using multiple partitions, no. If you're using an image with Parallels Desktop or VMware Fusion, only if an Erase & Install is done.
(40716)

How do you keep videos on the ipod but off your hard drive?

When i tried to keep the videos off my hard drive but keep them on my ipod it deleted them off of my ipod also. is there any way i can just keep the videos on my ipod, but off my computers hard drive? thanks,
keith

you could simply add your movies to your ipod by syncing them. Adn then afterwards remove them adn manually manage your music on your ipod syncing with new music you want to add. Or another way is to burn your movies to a disc adn then whenever you want movies on your ipod then you can iport the movies from the disc to your harddrive and then sync your ipod and then manually manage your itunes adn sync of new music.
GFF

Cant Recover My Ratings and Play count.. off old Hard drive

Heres my message to Tech support ... They referd me to you guy,s i should of came here in the first place ... ............................................................................... ...................( I was referd here by tech support on the phone ..... The XML file i imported had my playlists on it but did not have my history..... I lost my hard drive to a worm and i saved all of my documents/ iTunes folder before i switched hard drives...I kept my songs on my slave HD so they were not effected... i want to get all of my history/ recently played / top rated / play count / stars / playlists / ect. back on to my iTunes on my new hard drive ... i imported the XML file and it did give me my playlists ....BUT!... I have a ton of other info on those songs besides just the playlists... Im not gonna sync my ipod cause if i do it will erase all of the info i need. All of my ratings and everything is on my ipod ... I know the hard part is getting songs off an ipod .. i dont need to do that ... i have all my songs right where they always were... I want my Data back !!!! please dont tell me what geek squad did ..they want 200$ 600$ to data recover my ipod .. Absoulutly rediculas ... also since i bought my ipod along time ago .. you guys wont even talk to me on the phone ... Im no computer genius .. im sure this is an easy thing to do .. but most people cant do it so geek squad wants 600$ f#@!g dollars to do it ... or 40 $ a min to talk on the phone ... you have to excuse my bitterness but ive been dissconnected 2wice on the supprt line after 30 min hold times ... just to be told the 3rd time that they wont talk to me ... They referd me to You ............ I hope you can help me Ive been a loyal apple cust since my 1st gen iPod back in 03 ... i have 2 now and my whole family enjoys them also ... my iTunes program is shared with a few of em and its not just me who would like all of the info back... Thank you very much.. Marty )................... UGH... H E L P !!!!

Did you by any chance save the OTHER database file along with the XML file (the itl file)? That is the one with your data. But if you didn't...
Copying from iPod to Computer threads...
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5044027&#5044027
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=893334&tstart=0
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=797432&#797432
Also these useful internet articles...
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/copying-music-from-ipod-to-co mputer/
http://www.engadget.com/2004/11/02/how-to-get-music-off-your-ipod/
http://playlistmag.com/secrets/2006/12/twowaystreet20/index.php
http://playlistmag.com/help/2005/01/2waystreet/
Patrick

My computer crashed - I set it back to when It was bought, downloaded everything with the back up hard drive I had, Itunes account is there, but none of my music, no purchase music or anything, how do I find it

my computer had a virus, so I set it back to it's orginal state. I used the backup hard drive to download everything back on. ITunes: account shows up let's me log in, says all my files are there, but nothing is showing up, no music at all, none of my purchased music nothing. I thought it was always in ITunes, but it's gone, where is it

check out this post by Zevoneer.

How Do You Securely Wipe All Info Off Internal Hard Drive?

A friend has to ship her new iMac back to Apple for a replacement -- long story.
But before she ships it off she wants to wipe the internal hard drive of all her personal info -- mail, photos, music, documents, ...
What's the best way to securely wipe that internal drive?

you can do it using the erase tab in disk utility. there is an option to erase securely. it writes zeros over everything on the drive. do just one zero erase pass. disk utility lets you choose multiple erase passes but that's a vast overkill.
to do it to an internal drive boot from the snow leopard dvd and use disk utility there to erase the drive. when done restart and hold option at the chime. this will boot you into startup disk manager. eject the isntall dvd there and shut down.

Booting off external hard drive

I am trying to boot off an external Seagate 160GB USB hard drive. I used SuperDuper to create a full system backup to my drive. When I reboot, I should hold option, right? When I hold option, the grey screen comes up when booting after the chime and then the system reboots again with the chime. It doesn't give me the bootable drive option. Can someone help? Thanks.

hello i have a similar problem with my mac mini i aquired a 160GB western digital drive and cloned my current 40GB seagate drive into it using a software called carbon copy cloner but after replacing the drive the flashing ? appears iv tried almost everything possible i have zapped the pram,reset the nvram and nothing seems to work but i see the drive when i connect to my mac via usb as an external harddrive i guess my question is how do i make my new hard drive bootable since its going to replace my old one in the mac please help.
thanks
aden

Run itunes off external hard drive and keep settings

I have an imac which has my consolidated music library on it. I also have a macbook which i use while traveling. My itunes is about 130 gigs, which is fine on my imac, but too big for my macbook. in the past what i have done is just put everything on my 80 gig ipod, and then do the manual setting in itunes so that, if i get new music while traveling, i can put it on the ipod. anyway, that ipod was stolen and now i have a nano. So what i want to do is somehow copy my itunes from my imac onto an external hard drive, and then run itunes off that from my macbook. the point being to have my whole music collection there. The problem is that i cant seem to keep all my ratings, play counts and settings and stuff, the macbook doesnt recognize the setting file when its on the hard drive. Is there a way to do this? I tried changing the iTunes music folder location to the folder on the hard drive, but that did not make the songs appear in itunes on the macbook.
In addition, what id like to be able to do is, when i come back, copy the itunes from the external back onto my imac with all the new ratings, play counts, and music.
Message was edited by: poil66

See this article, iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Music folder, http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449
"If you just want to move all those music and media files to another hard drive on your system, here's a way to make the move while retaining all your playlists, ratings, and play history."

Moving old projects off the hard drive

My hard drive that is designated to save FCP projects is filling. What do I need to be mindful of if I am going to archive old projects to another drive in order to clear some space? I don't want to delete a project and then have a client come along and say, "remember that project we did 2 years ago..." So, is there am effective way to move an old project off to another drive?
Thanks for any help!
phoenix3505

I've had good lick with the Voyager from Other World Sales. It is a case and power supply that make it very easy to use a bare SATA drive as another drive on the system. I use backup software to back the entire project up every day, both capture files and FCP generated files.
This gives me a complete backup on hard disk of everything that is currently active in the project.
When the project is finished, I delete the files on my internal disks, and put the raw drive into an archival anti-static case and put it on the shelf for "in case".
With teradyte drives costing $100, this is a good strategy for backing up continuously during the project, and keeping a backup of everything afterwards.

Now that I saved everything to my LaCie external hard drive, do I need to erase my IMAC hard drive? My computer is still slow. :(

My computer is still slow after uninstalling Macbook pro and buying a LaCie external hard drive and saving everything to it. I repaired disk permissions. Am I supposed to erase original hard drive?
Thanks!

Not yet, get a second hard drive, or a second medium to backup your data. You never want there to be less than two copies of your data at anytime. If for some reason one fails, you'll always want a backup. Clone with Superduper or Carbon Copy Cloner. Note, if you have an early 2008 Mac, it is not PPC, but rather Intel. PPC indicates the chip is G3, G4, or G5. You can double check this by going to Apple menu and selecting About This Mac. Once you verified your Mac, I can ask a moderator to move this thread, so you don't have to crosspost.

Everything is gone off my hard drive

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for