Posted by Vince on 10/13/2009, 1:07 am, in reply to "Snow Leopard bug"
68.144.14.16
The same kind of problem that Windows produces with user accounts from time to time. People panic and think their data is all "wiped out" but I very much doubt that's the case: it's just that, whatever a new user can see in a brand new account, all of his own ..... is all that a normal user would see when this kind of problem pops up.
One of the dirty tricks that kids have been known to pull on others' computers occasionally, is to delete the Documents and Settings folder (XP). The computer will still boot but ........ alas ........ an entirely DIFFERENT screen greets the user! It's the screen of a freshly installed XP with the "Bliss" wallpaper picture and NOTHING installed. There is that moment of panic then too, as if everything has been lost. In fact, everything in the Documents and Settings folder may have been lost (if it was fully deleted) but ...... everything ELSE is still on the hard drive.
I don't remember just how Mac OS-X works .... since it's been quite awhile since I last ran it ... but I'm pretty sure it has some kind of Explorer of its own, where one can view the content of the hard drive. That would show the true content, whereas a user's own account might only show the user's content and so, IF the user's account has JUST been created, it would show essentially NO content.
I've known situations in Windows XP where .... someone got an update in the middle of using Outlook Express ..... the machine closed down and rebooted and ...... when it came back to life, the user was horrified to find ALL TRACES of the stored emails -in and out- totally GONE!! Or .... a Firefox update arrives, the update is carried out and immediately all traces of user settings, bookmarks and configurations have totally disappeared.
These are profile problems. The data still exists but something happened to the profile to create a problem and a new profile was created instead. The old profile data still remains in place but it's been written off with something like .old or .bak behind it. Fortunately ALL the data can quite "easily" be retrieved (over a lengthy period of time, sometimes).
I suspect the same holds true for this present Apple problem. Finding out WHAT causes this profile corruption though ... apparently has proven to be quite elusive.
-Vince
Message Thread:
« Back to thread
