OS X :: Deleted Private Folder - Unable To Restore?
Aug 24, 2008
I deleted my /Private folder. I'm not sure how I was able to but I think I deleted some random little files in my Mac HD before that and I do recall entering my password (the administrative / master password) to authorize the deletion. So that's how I got into this situation. I'd just also like to say that I do not have my information backed up.
What I Have Tried:
- Rebooting in Single-User mode following some code I found off a forum for someone who had only deleted their /var folder- Failed!
- Rebooting in SU mode following code off Apple Support website- Failed!
- Called 1-800-MY-APPLE - was told I could only reinstall everything- Failed!
- Went into the Genius Bar to talk to a Genius. He tried to start up remotely with an External HD- Failed!
- Was told by the Genius to take a firewire cable and hook up my computer to another Mac and start in Target Disk mode, move all my data onto there (or an external HD attached to computer 2) and then reinstall - Failed! (Reason: The second computer could not detect my computer? Indexing was taking forever but I couldn't stop Spotlight from indexing because I could not find it... My disk / the icon does not appear on the desktop. BUT, it was detected through Time Machine.)
I have accidentally deleted the Private folder in the root of the HD. Now OSX will not boot. The folder is still sitting in my Trash folder and I would like from the Boot CD Terminal to copy back from the trash to the Macintosh HD/ location.
I deleted the "hidden" private folder on my mac, but that still on trash. Now the big problems are:
- when I try to open Terminal to move the folder from the trash to my hard disk, appears a message that says: the administrator doesn't specified your shell with a legal value. - I can't change the date and time; - well almost nothing.
Ugh. So I was cleaning out my HD with 'WhatSize' and saw the 'private folder', which was about 4.6 GB. Thinking nothing of it and also suspecting that this might be the folder responsible for the my auto-depleting harddrive I trashed it. Upon stupidly emptying the trash I found that some files were emptied while most of them survived. Noticing that I wasn't able to open iTunes or even reinstall it, I restarted the computer.
Now, I can't get into Snow Leopard and have to use Windows (I have Bootcamp). I tried doing the "ditto /volumes..." command in single-user mode, but it says it couldn't find my username. I tried looking up the username with the 'launch ctl load' command, but it can't find the Directory Services file. Is there any way I can get Snow Lepoard back without losing any space? I have a lot of important media that I would really like to keep (photos, films, music, etc.)
I deleted my private folder. It's still in the trash, and it's also in my applications folder if that makes a difference. I turned off my mac and now I can't boot it back up. I can boot into single user mode and tried entering some codes in there but I keep getting errors. I have a new Macbook Pro with Snow Leopard, and I have the install disk but I can't get the computer to start up with it.
I have a strange "/private" folder in my root directory (Macintosh HD) after a Time Capsule restore today. The folder is ~5GB in size, and appears to have been created during the restore process. The files in the folder have strange-appearing "system" file type names. Can I safely delete this folder? Not sure why its there, but given its size, I'd prefer to delete it.
Long story short I accidentally deleted my dashboard from the applications folder and emptied the trash. I don't have the original restoration disks so I was hoping that someone could host the file for me.
So my computer has about 4gb of free space on the hd. I leave for a few minutes, come back and see in the finder that there is 0KB! It also won't let me do anything, not even quit itunes because it says it can't save the library file. It's weird because the computer was idle, I'm pretty sure the only open app was iTunes.
So I restart the computer but nothing has changed. So I transfer a bunch of files to an external HD then delete them. So I now have free space. I want to know where the space went though? I opened OmniDiskSweeper to see what's taking up space and I see this folder called "private" that I've never seen before. Where is this located and could this be the space that disappeared? I included a screenshot so you can see where the folder is.
I know this has been asked before and I asked it once too, but I don't understand all these technical terms and nothing I did worked. I've now got over 20GB in this "private" folder as I saw in Disc Inventory X. I cannot find this folder anywhere when I search and I cannot delete it.
I realised a big chunk of my hard drive space missing and couldn't find where it had gone. I downloaded Disk Inventory and ran the program. It shows that i have a folder called 'Private' within this are three sub folders:
Var Log Asl
I have searched for all of these and can't find them on my hard drive anywhere. Can anyone tell me what these are, if I can delete them and if so how do I find them.
I was wondering if it is possible to make a certain folder password protected? If so, how would I do that? I only want to require password on one specific folder.
I was searching around on Google trying to find a way of creating a private folder, all I found was articles saying that you had to create a disk image of a folder, the only problem is that the whole password system wouldn't always work. So I thought of a better way, what you do is with the folder you wish to create private open the Get Info panel. Then open the Sharing & Permissions panel, enter your user password if prompted, turn all of them to drop box only, then click the lock, users will now only be able to view this folder if they unlock the panel with your user password and then change the style.
For some reason unknown to me, my "private" folder is visible. I've done all the "usual" things and even have an Automator action that shows and hides invisible files, but I just can't make it invisible again. Now this isn't really a BAD thing as I know how to poke around in there, but still... it's a mystery to me.
I moved my Mac HD's private folder to the trash not knowing that it stores thousands of crucial UNIX folders (one of which that stores the admin password). I haven't yet trashed it, but I can't move it back to its original location because when I try to do that Leopard asks for the admin password but the password doesn't exist anymore because it's been moved to the trash. Is there anyway I can remove the private folder from the Trash and put it back? Maybe some kind of Terminal command?
I accidentally trashed my private folder and then emptied my trash. I have looked into it and everyone has answers on how to reinstall it if I didn't empty the trash but the issue is I did empty the trash. My computer won't start up all the way as you would imagine. I have my disk and everything but I do not have all of my things backed up or archived.
My issue is I can easily reinstall Mac OS X 10.4 but I have some vital videos and footage for a video we are working on that I cannot deleted or take the chance of losing. Does anyone know a way I can back up the movie files or any way of doing anything of that sort? This is very important I do not have the tapes anymore with the raw footage on it so if I lose this footage pretty much our last year of work and filming is ruined and so is our release date in two weeks.
I have some files on my desktop right now that I would like to secure from wondering eyes. Other people use my Macbook Pro from time to time and I don't want anyone to read these documents. Is there a way to create a folder/file that requires a password to gain entry to view the contents of this folder/file?
How long should I be stuck on the screen "calculating space required to restore data"? I've been on this screen for about 20, 30 minutes. The "hash mark wheel" is spinning, but just not seeing anything new. Is this normal? My backed up data is ~100 GB.
I have not installed time machine on my Mac Pro and accidentally deleted a lot of picture files, included emptied the trash can. Is there anything I can do to restore the files?
Can anyone tell me how to make the applications folder reappear in my home folder without it looking like an alias? My steam install somehow messed it up so I had to delete it, and now I am trying to figure out how to get it back.
How can I restore applications like Chess. I inserted the Macbook Pro Applications Install CD but there were only Garage Band and an another application.
I was trying out to test if I might want to use OSX since I was always using Windows XP, but apparently I did some stupid things while I was on OSX. I wanted to expand my OSX partition but I couldn't do the typical dragging to adjust the size, so I pressed on the + button on disk utility and my windows partition became 2 equal partitions. But that wasn't what I wanted so what I did was to click - and not sure that that was an actual confirmation for deletion, I clicked the button to Doom! So now, I'm left with a single Mac partition with the rest of HDD in free space condition. I didn't create a new partition or read or write to the sector. The question is, thus, if there is anyway to restore or undelete that partition that was so unfortunate?
I deleted my user file Macintosh HD/Users/MY USER NAME.
How can I get it back? I used data rescue 2 but it didn't get the folders it was in or the file names and I have about 300 files on my desktop so I can't rename everything. I also have a iPhone and I and I want to know if everything on it will be deleted at the next sync (Contacts, songs, videos, Photos, Apps) if I can't get my files back because some of my song aren't backup so my iTunes won't be the same as the last time I sync my iPhone (My iPhone is Jailbroken.)
Last night in a desperate attempt to get some GBs back, I went crazy on Spring Cleaning and accidentally deleted all my .plist files... and considering I have tons of media editing software that I had arranged the preferences to ultimate perfection, I'm kinda upset.
How can i get them back?? I just redragged them from the trash to the Library/Preferences folder but they don't seem to be doing much there.
In foolishly thinking I could save all my documents by dragging the "Documents" portion of the Hard Drive menu on my eMac, the Documents box went "poof." How do I restore this back to the menu?
