Recovering from Damage to User folder

Question

My Intel Mac (10.4.11) had a seizure the other day. Something got scrambled, because after the dust settled, when I logged in to my usual account, the Finder went unstoppably in an endless loop, quitting and restarting itself every 15 seconds. Everything else was running correctly -- but it was difficult to do more than the most basic operations in this state.
(I connected via LAN from another machine to back up my most important files. I tried rebooting and not logging in, in which state I could mount the disk on a remote machine. In that condition, copying worked flawlessly. )
I tried various standard fixes and finally found that creating a new user fixed the problem -- the system worked completely normally running as the new user. So, I decided to abandon the old user account and use the new one.
My guess is that something in the user folder for the old account got scrambled, almost certainly something in the ...Users/<oldusername>/Library folder, but not the Preferences folder -- one of the first measure I took was removing the contents of this folder, which had no effect.
Folders owned by <oldusername> was the most frequent problem I encountered while converting to the new user account. I tried changing ownership at the highest level of my work folders, using Get Info and "Apply to enclosed items...", but there are just enough locked items (I guess) sprinkled around to sabotage that operation. I'd invariably get "The operation could not be completed because you do not have sufficient privileges for some of them."
My questions:
1. Is there any way to protect against this kind of failure? (My guess: "No.")
2. Is it worthwhile trying to locate and correcting the failure rather than abandoning the failing account and starting over? (My guess: "No, though it might be done, the work might take a very long time and the result might not be entirely solid.")
3. Are there any utilities or shortcut methods that can help the transfer everything to a new username? (My guess: "No. Just gotta do the hard work.")
4. Is there a web page that summarizes the locations of the databases for all the standard Mac utilities, e.g. Address Book, iTunes, iPhoto etc., along with tips for transferring them to a new user cleanly?
5. The Finder method of changing owners using Get Info and "Apply to enclosed items..." aborts when the first unchangeable item is encountered, right? (That seemed to be the case.)
5. Is there any better alternative to changing ownership of a massive folder hierarchy containing a few locked files besides opening a Terminal window and executing a chown -R command as Superuser?
6. Am I missing anything really obvious in all this? <grin>
TIA,
Henry

Answer 1

Hi Henry,
1. Several preventative things can be done...
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
5. Select your Mac OS X volume.
6. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then Safe Boot , (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it finishes.
The usual reason why updates fail or mess things up, or things don't load/run, is if Permissions are not fixed before & after every update, with a reboot... you may get a partial update when the installer finds it doesn't have Permissions to change one obscure little part of the OS, leaving you with a mix of OS versions.
Some people get away without Repairing Permissions for years, some for only days.
If Permissions are wrong before applying an update, you could get mixed OS versions, if Directory is the slightest messed up, who knows!
If many Permission are repaired, or any Directory errors are found, you may need to re-apply some the latest/biggest updates again, or even do an A&I if you have enough free disk space.
The combo update for PowerPC-based Macs...
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosx10411comboupdateppc.html
The combo update for Intel-based Macs...
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosx10411comboupdateintel.html
Repair Permissions before & after re-install, then reboot again each time.
If all the above do not resolve the problem, then it's time for an Archive & Install, which gives you a new/old OS, but can preserve all your files, pics, music, settings, etc., as long as you have plenty of free disk space...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107120
Be sure to use Preserve Users & Settings.
I only use Software Update to see what is needed, then get them for real via...
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/
That way I can wait a week or so, check the forums for potential problems, and get Permissions & such in order before installing.
DiskWarrior is worth it's weight in gold...
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/
2. Depends what you need.
3. Not the way stated.
5. BatChMod...
http://www.macchampion.com/index.shtml