Force quite & restart - now lost mail, ICal,Iphoto, bookmarks

Question

Hi,
Hoping someone can help me - an amateur but keen to learn Mac user.
Did a force quite on mail and then shutdown Mac (may have also logged out - not exactly sure though).
Computer powered up and it is as if I am using it for the 1st time - Mail blank(asking for new account info), Ical data gone, Iphoto data gone , firefox bookmarks gone.
After much panic, did a bit of searching and found the following:
1/System log shows that at time of 'force quit/shutdown' >> Setting hostname to 'my-name-computer.local'
2/ Managed to find my files under :Home file/my name/public/library/mail or calanders etc....where as currently it is pulling or storing data from :Home File /my name/library/mail or calanders etc.....
I suspect I have changed some setting and the public file has something to do with it but not sure what or how to fix it so I can restore everything back to normal.
Any ideas would be really appreciated.
Thanks
AJ

Answer 1

The symptoms you describe to appear to pertain to the original user
account having a significant flaw or corruption; so the result bears
out the idea since you are prompted to enter information as though
you had never used those items before.
Since the issue appears to be a damaged Directory, where the user
account is still there but not being seen correctly due to shutdown or
other corruption errors, one of the tools that may help restore the Mac
could be the use of *Disk Warrior*; it can built a new directory or fix one.
The booted Disk Utility in your OS X install disc won't fix a Directory.
So, that is something worth checking into further: using Disk Warrior.
Outside of that, there are other causes or initial paths to a similar failure
of the directory; some are caused by attempts to 'archive & install' and
not save the user's existing folder info over into the new system. In that
case, the info would be in the 'previous system' but not the new one.
I'm not sure (now) how to 'Recover Your Mac OS X Home Folder' &
or restore it; I've read of some who did that in more than one way, to
include moving the user info bits into another account given Admin
access, then after, delete the defective account entirely. You should
not have to do that level; and it involves more than I dare mention...
because, although I did read about it, I have promptly forgotten!
I'm glad they've named this area "Discussions."
You may have to read up on a few topic areas that probably overlap;
one of them covers the general topic of recovering a (lost?) home folder.
This first one covers several topics and before going into it as though it
were really the correct answer, presume it is not. You are asked to use
the "root" user in do some tasks, straight-on; but later in the article, is
a less invasive thing to check into (read more about, search for, etc) in
the last section: Recover a user’s account or files.
{The main problem may be, that the items you may want to save into a
new replacement Admin user account, could be damaged or really lost.}
• How to Recover Your Mac OS X Home Folder:
http://www.pctipsbox.com/how-to-recover-your-mac-os-x-home-folder/
• Mac OS X: How to recover a home folder (directory)
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2258
In the immediate above article, the action to create a new/replacement
user account named the same as the failed one, and a general way to
reclaim the old similar-named user preferences and info, is outlined.
• Recovering Lost Users - Mac OS X Tips
http://www.macosxtips.co.uk/index_files/recovering-lost-users.html
This page tells of two main ways the user account appears missing
and some methodology of how to restore some sense of it again.
If you had a pre-problem clone of your entire computer's contents,
the easy answer would be to re-clone the incredible backup to the
Mac after wiping the computer's drive completely. Or try Disk Warrior.
Hopefully some of this makes sense.
Some days, nothing does to me.
Good luck & happy computing!
{ edited due to lack of caffeine }