Serious mac problem, advice!

Neil79 · 22 Mar 2011 at 00:43

This isn't my mac but my mums, recently everytime she logged into her account it would load the desktop then straight back to the login screen. She could only login to her guest accounts!.

I couldn't fix her admin login, so i created her a new admin account which was a great deal of faffing about with command prompts and folder rights. I basically had to tell the computer it was a new system, i then copied everything over to the new account. Now a week later after everything was working brilliantly, she's turned the system on and same again straight back to the login!

I'm really starting to hate mac systems, they are a pig to fix and my mum is abit upset.

Neil79 · 22 Mar 2011 at 00:53

Yep when it first happened

1. > Sudo -s no root password so i didnt have to enter mine.
2. > /sbin/mount -uw /
3. > rm /Library/Caches/com.apple.LaunchServices*
4. > reboot

But i was still not able to get into the account, i had to create another clean one... A week later it happened again, not sure why this looped login keeps happening.

Neil79 · 22 Mar 2011 at 01:07

She can't get into any of her accounts now

guess i'll need to create another admin.. sigh thanks anyway Brian!

Neil79 · 22 Mar 2011 at 01:21

Don't know how, i know enough about a mac as a childs first computer

Neil79 · 22 Mar 2011 at 11:47

Linux?

lol

Neil79 · 22 Mar 2011 at 16:09

FIXED IT!

I was rather smart in the fact that when i first created the previous admin account before this looped login happened again i had made another account as a backup. I completely forgot that i had made this, so i went into the temp/backup account and looked to see what was going on. First i tried to delete the previous admin account that was broken while keeping the files. It kept on telling me, ERROR COULD NOT DELETE!. Uh oh :eek:

I then dragged the broken admin folder over to the desktop and it vanished, i tried clicking on my default apps/docs/pics YOU DO NOT HAVE AUTHORIZATION RIGHTS. Something wasn't right, even though i was admin i couldn't access anything. Nothing would appear on the desktop and applications would open and avnish.

Did a Hard Drive check, everything was ok bar two files that had bad permissions(shockwave). So i edited every single file/folder with the admin rights that i wanted for the owner. Pics/desktop/user folders the lot Suddenly the desktop appeared and about a 1000 files going right back to 2007 :eek:

Cleaned up all the old apps and start up apps which went back years, then i made two seperate backup admin accounts with my own personal password. Deleted the old admin account and made the new account the home admin.

Rebooted the system not only does she now have access to all her original files she also has access to her email accounts and messangers. She was really pleased.

It looks as good as new !

Neil79 · 24 Mar 2011 at 00:42

EVH said:
I'd still take a backup of her files and start again. There's no telling how many permissions are now b0rked because of your "fix"

At-least my fix got her entire system up and working and she has admin rights to her system. After all she is the owner and the owner is happy!

Thanks for sarcastically saying i've broken her system

Why are there so many wind up merchants on tonight

Neil79 · 24 Mar 2011 at 00:57

Brian8bit said:
Did you make sure to reset all the permissions you changed to the defaults? Because if not, they're possible security holes. That's all he meant.

Yes

Neil79 · 24 Mar 2011 at 18:42

Things went from bad to worse

Went to get some DVDRS today to start backing everything up and now she can't boot at all, just a grey screen. Did a hard drive check and it's coming up with a failed volume and lots of other errors. Cannot be repaired is the end result, so all this time it's the hard drive!

64GB worth of family photo's unaccesable, the imac is insured for repair but we need those files!

Neil79 · 24 Mar 2011 at 21:35

Concorde Rules said:
Oh and BACKUP, why does it require this kind of thing to happen before people actually do anything about it?

Because of the type of people that don't backup?

Mother, in her late 50's, facebook,email and internet... Not everyone is computer savy like we are. If it was my choice i'd burn every mac, horrible horrible things. Atleast with a windows system i'd be able to just bung on another sata cable and copy over just her pics!

Neil79 · 25 Mar 2011 at 01:04

It said the hard drive was fine, it said the memory was good.. I didn't get a chance to backup as i was today going to buy dvdrs!

Anyway i might be computer savy but not mac savy, i do not like the machine at all

... I don't have 70GB worth of USB drive lol because that's pretty much how many files over the years she has

Neil79 · 25 Mar 2011 at 13:57

Thanks CR!

Atleast the mac is on a monthly payment for guarantee, £10 a month or something. Might send it in for repair, atleast find out whats up with it. As it's shutting itself off now at grey screen.

The mac was purchased in 2007 so not new

Neil79 · 26 Mar 2011 at 14:27

UPDATE

The imac now has a new internal hard drive, all repaired cleaned up and installed myself!. Good fun, though i prefer a pc upgrade any day

Over the week i'll be looking into data recovery from the old drive