Everything is gone..?

[londonguy839]

Okay, so I have had this problem before. Everything seems to be going fine on my mac, I log off, and disconnect from the internet, as i am on wireless, because my dad doesn't want me using his internet. (I still live at home) So you would think everything would be fine if I came back in 8 hours, right? Wrong. Very wrong!

I came home today, and all of my bookmarks, safari settings, iphoto albums, itunes songs, system preferences, and auto-sign ins were gone!

not sure how this happened. I installed a software update last night, but it was working fine after that. As well as this morning.

Im not too r=worried, as i have back ups of my music. the strange thing is my documents and pictures are still there, but all the pictures were removed from iPhoto...

Has anyone else had this problem? I am hoping it is just stupid Tiger, as it has happened before, which is why I am upgrading to Snow Leopard in a few days. (Does anyone know if security will be better? I know its faster, but havn't seen anything about security.)

I just turned on File Vault, not sure how it works, but it seems like it would protect me more than If I didnt enable it.

Hopefully one of you smarties can help me out Sorry to be such a pain

 

[gambit22121]

Are you logging in to the Mac as a guest? If you are, the mac is set to automatically wipe everything in the guest instance upon logout. That's the only thing that I could think of that could cause that.

 

[andysayshi]

^ Yep. Sounds like you are signed in as a Guest, or have signed in using the wrong account. Check System Preferences/Accounts to see.

Re security, Apple says:

Another benefit of the 64-bit applications in Snow Leopard is that they’re even more secure from hackers and malware than the 32-bit versions. That's because 64-bit applications can use more advanced security techniques to fend off malicious code. First, 64-bit applications can keep their data out of harm's way thanks to a more secure function argument-passing mechanism and the use of hardware-based execute disable for heap memory. In addition, memory on the system heap is marked using strengthened checksums, helping to prevent attacks that rely on corrupting memory.

 

[londonguy839]

When I go into system preferences, there is no accounts icon. ???

 

[londonguy839]

no, there is just my account to choose from. My dad has nothing to do with this, he has never touched my computer, or set anything up.

 

[londonguy839]

I tried terminal, and it only found one account. Im not using time machine, I was thinking about getting it, but the things on my computers are not really worth it- nothing really valuable. It is more of an annoyance.

 

[sheep]

in safari> preferences >General do you have *remove download list items:*set to other than manually? You shouldn't. And Remove history items after 1 day? U shouldn't. If you have Tiger, you don't have Time Machine which came out with Leopard. It saved my ass not long ago. You only need another hard drive plugged into Firewire port or, heaven forbid, USB.
I think you will like leopard and particularly Snow Leopard particularly if you have a very recent Mac as they will take advantage of all the OS has to offer. If you have Tiger, your computer may not be able to use everything but its gonna be a lot faster.

I think somehow you have dragged all your stuff into another folder. iTunes wont show up if the music file has been moved. It needs to be in your home folder >Music > iTunes. you will need in that folder iTunes library and iTunes Music Library.xml
Like it was suggested, use findfile for a known file. If it finds it it will show the location. Look there. Your other stuff might be there.

BTW don't ever forget your password for filevault. If you do, u r screwed.

 

[londonguy839]

Thanks so much sheep! Very helpful. Snow Leopard comes out on friday So, since my mac is tiger, i wont be able to use all the features. Its from late 2006. Would I be better just getting a new one? There so much memory left, and i was planning on getting Time capsule.

 

[sheep]

Thanks so much sheep! Very helpful. Snow Leopard comes out on friday So, since my mac is tiger, i wont be able to use all the features. Its from late 2006. Would I be better just getting a new one? There so much memory left, and i was planning on getting Time capsule.

Actually there is one feature in Snow Leopard that most won't need and indeed few apps have been written so far to utilize it. It is OpenCL and it allows the very fast Graphics processor to do some very fast intensive computing allowing the CPU's to do the slower stuff. On my Mac Pro we are talking 1 Teraflop. For me it'll be there when I need it. Unless your iMac was from the spring of this year, namely the newest ones OpenCL won't be coming to an iMac near you.
Why not tell us the specs on your computer then we can fight amongst ourselves giving you advice. Upgrade or buy new? That is the question.
While Macs have incredible staying power (we have an iMac from 2001 which is in use daily and never had a problem with it) please realize that the prices have come down so much as the speed has gone up. Your 2006 model will work better in Leopard if it has 2 gigs of ram and if your hard drive is only about 25% full. A hard drive at 80% is pushing full. If you have to take it in to have a new drive & more memory installed plus upgrading the OS, you should look at the new ones. They are very fast and start at $1399.CDN for a 20". That is what my husband is using and it is driving another 22" monitor. They come with airport aka wifi on the dark side and bluetooth and a CD-DVD burner standard and 2 gigs of ram. Unless you want to run some flavour of windows on it, 2 gigs should be enough with Snow Leopard otherwise upgrade it to 4 gigs. I have 6 on my Mac Pro. and regularly have 15 to 20 applications open all day. But I could do the same with my 10 year old G4 tower and 2 gigs.
What will you be using the computer for?? If you are heading off to university, the 12 or 15" MacBookPro is your best bet. Check out Apple's canadian store.
http://store.apple.com/ca/browse/home/shop_mac/family/imac

Just one more thing. Have you run disk utility in the utilities folder in Applications? You should *repair permissions*. It is possible if you havent done that in awhile the upgrade you installed could have changed some permissions. This could make things vanish or not operate. It is very fast in Tiger.
If you need any help you can also PM me.