All My Files have disappeared after restart please help :(

[JazzyK]

I was having problems getting the sound to work on my tv via the HDMI lead playing a movie in VLC, I restarted the mac and it has wiped all my documents, itunes, photos, microsoft office and all web history. I have no idea whats happened - I hadn't backed up my files so I'm desperate for help anyone any ideas please please please
I've read other threads with similar problems some suggesting disk warrior with little effect and others who have found their files hidden in random places but I can only find any trace of the files deleted in my console messages where it lists the restart and all the files it's deleted!

 

[Kaveman]

disk warrior with little effect

Disk Warrior has great effect, its just no File recovery can guaranty recovery, especially after a restart. Also it is a very manual process, so rebuilding iTunes and the iPhoto Libraries is a PIA. Again there is no way around this.

P.S. Macs don't just

wiped all my documents

you did something!

 

[JazzyK]

P.S. Macs don't just you did something!

All I did was restart the computer nothing unusual in that surely?

 

[Kaveman]

I was having problems getting the sound to work on my tv via the HDMI lead playing a movie in VLC

It a bit hard to tell what you were doing, as I don't have your logs, but I can assure you with total confidence that OS X does not just wipe users documents. Can you imagine the out cry and media if millions of users started losing their documents when restarting their Macs.

Something that you ran, installed or did caused that to happen, I can't really help you recover your files without some idea of what you did, but rest assured it wasn't restarting your Mac.

 

[oldscribe]

I agree totally with what Kaveman has said, this sort of thing just can not happen by itself there had to be input from someone or something.
And would take it in to a genius bar to get them to try and recover these lost files. If you do when you get the Mac back run TM.

 

[JazzyK]

Ok I recovered all my files some not completely using Disk Drill, checked for Malware & trojans -
none found, ran disk warrior which said it repaired some files. All this has been done but every time I shutdown or restart all the recovered docs vanish. The mac is deleting all the desktop and documents, downloads basically anything in the home directory, iphoto etc the only things remaining untuched are in the applications folder! I am at a loss what else to do!

 

[Kaveman]

When I asked my Apple Tech, she said the only thing she could think of was that your Account was set to Guest.

 

[JazzyK]

When I asked my Apple Tech, she said the only thing she could think of was that your Account was set to Guest.

Thanks is there a way of checking this I've looked in users and clicked on my home drive which is still in my name and says I have read & write privileges I'm admin on my mac.

 

[Kaveman]

The only other thing that would explain the symptoms is a failing Hard drive, the file catalogue is becoming corrupt and you are loosing nodes. I wouldn't waste any time before getting your files backed up!

 

[oldscribe]

checked for Malware & trojans

May I ask what software you are using for doing this?

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

Thanks is there a way of checking this I've looked in users and clicked on my home drive which is still in my name and says I have read & write privileges I'm admin on my mac.

Launch System Prefs and look under Users & Groups and in the left column you will see your accounts and the type; Standard, Admin or Guest

For everyday use it's strongly advised to use a Standard Account type which can be created from the Admin Account.