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How I Killed My iBook, and Why It Wasn't That Bad. |
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 With Panther coming out Friday, I have decided to start backing up my computer. Rather than doing an upgrade, I am just going to start fresh and erase and install. Well, I have an iBook, and a G4, and the G4 has about 40 GB of stuff on it now. So I was going through my iBook deleting things I don't need so I can back up some of the data on it, when I decided to get rid of my OS 9 stuff. I deleted the OS 9 application folder, and as I was trying to delete the System Folder, it said I didn't have permission to do so. So I dropped into Terminal, and from the root of my hard drive I typed "sudo rm -r System Folder". I typed my password, and then realized what I just did.
For those of you unfamiliar with the unix rm command, -r means erase whatever I tell you, no matter what, and don't ask me if I am sure. And you can erase multiple files/folders with a space. So, in order to erase a folder called "System Folder" I would have to tell the rm command that I mean the "System Folder" and not "System" and "Folder" by adding a \ before each space in the name. I forgot the extremely important "\".
As I realized I just killed my OS X install, I first cursed a lot, then I started to try to figure out what I can do to fix it. I already had my iBook's hard drive mounted on my G4, so I tried a simple copy/paste of the System directory. No luck, I don't have permission. Tried from terminal by sudo-ing the "cp" command, but got basically the same error. So I logged out, and back in as Root. Tried both ways from there, with similar results.
I logged back out as root, and back in as my account, then tried to mount the iBook's hard drive again, but to my horror, the thing wouldn't mount. I tried mounting the G4's hard drive from the iBook, and it wouldn't respond. I tried opening things on my iBook, and nothing worked. I was screwed. So I rebooted, and as I expected, got the flashing question mark on the System Folder.
The only thing left for me to do was insert my Jaguar CD. I did that, and when it came time to select 'Archive and install' and 'Preserve user and network settings', it wouldn't let me select them. I left it on 'Install', rather than 'Erase and install', but expected to lose everything (since everything is in my Home folder). I finished installation, and set up my user account with the same name, and password.
To my surprise my desktop picture was the same as before. All my data was still there, all my settings were still there. Even the applications in the dock were the same! The only things that changed were some of the customizations I have made. The look of my dock was defaulted, and my boot screens were defaulted, but other than that, my iBook is just the same as when I killed it.
So the moral of this story is: Know what you are typing before you hit return in terminal. But my question is this, what would happen if you killed a Windows machine by deleting the system folder? And what would happen if you reinstalled Windows over top of itself after deleting the system folder? Would you still have most of your settings? |
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October 21 2003, 8:23 AM EDT, by
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Comments:
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| rlhamon |
10/21/03, 9:41 AM EDT |
iKen one word no .... you can delete the system folder but all you programs will have to reinstall so that they can be written into the windows registry and your favorites and windows address book will be gone and all settings will be set to default and you would have to reload all of your system drivers and printer drivers. It's really a lot of work that you would have to do.
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| Fletcher |
10/21/03, 9:49 AM EDT |
Well, you can still mount a system-less drive after booting from another disk ( CD, external firewire drive, iPod w/ OS X installed, etc). You can also connect the ibook to another firewire machine using firewire disk mode.
Your data itself was always safe unless you were to compound the problem by formatting the drive.... :) This would be true with Windows, Mac OS X, or Mac OS, or any other system as well.... As for system settings, these will be preserved better in a multi-user environment where the settings tend NOT to be stored in the system folder itself. But I would rather deal with it in OS X!!
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| Bob Pensik |
10/21/03, 5:07 PM EDT |
Wow that is amazing, and i mean amazingly lucky!! lol, i am a Mac user now but i used to spend HOURS on my Windows PC and let me tell you i re0installed and re-formatted mroe times then i care to count and never could i do anything like what you just said.
Whenver you install windows whether fresh or over a previous version it always screws with everything on your comp, drives, programs, everything :-S i know from experience!! lol
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| The Accidental Ninja |
10/23/03, 1:20 AM EDT |
I was walking through the park one afternoon, mindin my own business, when all of the sudden I was attacked! Three men, clad in gray corduroy overhauls and hunter orange stocking caps lept from the bushes and surrounded me. I started to run and one of them put his leg out, tripping me. I slammed to the ground...and when I looked back...my jaw dropped. They were dead, all of them. Hacked, mangled, scattered, smothered, and covered. There were long cuts all over them. Two of them, in fact, had chinese throwing stars sticking out of their heads, and the leader..........oh....the leader. His leg was the leg that tripped me, and as he lay in the bloodied dirt, his leg was contorted into a most horrific position. It spiraled up and twisted impossibly until it wrapped around the man's throat.....
I started to walk away, and it was then that I noticed the ninja tabi boots with the pointy forked toes on my feet....
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| Conserned Citizen |
10/23/03, 3:30 AM EDT |
Ahh...dude please move away from the bong .... I'm serious I'm worried about you man I think you just might of smoked yourself retarded
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The Accidental Ninja
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10/23/03, 8:02 AM EDT |
What!? What are you saying! SHHHHH!!!! You could die saying such things! If I wasn't looking, I could have accidently karate chopped your spleen! And as for iKen's little ibook? You are a lucky fargen icehole. I know that if the Accidental Ninja went and did something bad like that, he might catch himself by suprise and I would kick the living crap out of myself. No suprises.........no suprises.......no suprises (clenching knees to chest and rocking back and forth)
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