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spellflower

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 7, 2005
236
16
So I thought I would empty my trash using the "Secure Empty Trash". I didn't have that much in there, but it seemed to be taking forever, so I checked up, and noticed it said there were thousands of items to go. I stopped it and went to check that everything was okay. That's when I remembered that while using a folder I kept in Library (under my user account, so as to be secure from my roomate's snooping when he uses my machine with his account), I accidentally pulled the library itself on to the desktop when I meant to pull the windo up a bit. So now I had this Library icon, and I didn't know what to do with it. I didn't want to erase it ( :eek: ), so I tried to drag it onto the hard drive. When I did, a message popped up telling me that I already had it there, and did I want to replace the one I had? I said no, and dropped it into the trash. After stopping trash from rewriting everything, I opened the library folder, and found it much lighter than it was before. Now all that's there is icons, documentation, cookies, caches, safari, syndication, preferences, and itunes. Also, since doing this, safari is not displaying everything properly- here on macrumors, avatars are not showing up and my quotation marks above are right on top of the letters. On some pages, text and pics are right on top of each other.

WHAT HAVE I DONE? :eek: :eek: :eek:
 

jsw

Moderator emeritus
Mar 16, 2004
22,910
44
Andover, MA
I think your best bet might very well be to create a new account (System Preferences...->Accounts and move to it, assuming you don't have a backup.
 

FocusAndEarnIt

macrumors 601
May 29, 2005
4,628
1,112
I think making another account is your only option. Gotta be careful when dealing with the "Library" folder. ;)

We all make mistakes :) ;) :eek:
 

jsw

Moderator emeritus
Mar 16, 2004
22,910
44
Andover, MA
spellflower said:
So that means that I messed this one up but good?
Oh, yeah. Unfortunately.

However, you might be able to (in agonizingly slow fashion) fix things by either copying over Library folders from the new account and changing the ownership of them, or by copying folders from the previous account to the new one and (likewise) changing the ownership of those.

But, yeah, it would appear that you've screwed the pooch. At least you have some stuff left, which might be of some use.
 

spellflower

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 7, 2005
236
16
Can I imort my documents, bookmarks, itunes, pics, etc. (which, thank god, weren't affected) to a new account? What about cancelling this one? BTW, Safari works fine now.

Edit: I wanted to check other accounts and see if software I had in this one is in them (it's not), and when I signed back to this one my preferences were all set to normal- dock is standing at attention rather than hiding, expose isn't on, widgets are gone. I tried opening a microsoft word doc, and had to wait while office installed fonts, but at least it's there. Can I move Office to another account? How?

Also, I checked for software updates from apple, and it says I'm up to date.

Okay, another edit: I'm inclined to keep my account, since all the software is there as well as other files. But how do I "change ownership" of library files from another account?

Please help, anyone who can tell me how to put my life... er... computer back together! :eek:
 
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