On May 23, 2005, at 3:12 PM, Andy Hannen wrote:
If your Users directory is linked to another volume, it's possible
that the Tiger installation will delete your Users directory
altogether on an Archive and re-install, possibly an Update as well.
This is my working theory right now, at least.
Beware.
--
Bruce Johnson
This is the sig that says 'NI!'
Was this your User directory or a clients? Can you describe for us
what
happened and on what systems?
Ok, it's much less drastic than I thought. Tiger merely moved my user
directory to an unexpected place. Nothing was lost.
I had my Users directory residing on another disk, using the
instructions at <http://www.bombich.com>.
The system is a G4 Sawtooth with a variety of upgrades: CPU, CDRW
replacing the DVD, USB2 card.
Since Tiger comes on a DVD, I pluged in the old DVD drive via
firewire using an old Sony Spressa FW case.
Did an Archive and Install to install 10.4 and it seemed to go
without a hutch, save at the very end, a screen came up and said
there had been an error, and the Install failed.
That's odd, sez I, let's try it again.
Go through the initial stuff, select Archive and Install again, and
this time the option for keeping the users is grayed out.
Panic starts setting in, as I remember all the miscellaneous stuff I
haven't backed up...(yeah yeah yeah do as I say, not as I do!)
Here I have to give GIANT MAD LOVE to Apple; the Tiger installer disk
now includes Terminal as an available utility. Huzzah!
Fire up terminal and go exploring. The first results were truly panic-
inducing.
In the .Trashes folder of the boot drive I find the symlink to the
Users directory on the other volume.
On the other volume, I find.......NO USERS DIRECTORY!!!
At this point I take several deep breaths.
Look again. Nothing.
Think..."ok, ok, Nothing's been done to the disk, maybe I can recover
things."
At this point, my wife calls with a crisis at home....
That night I research 'file recovery OS X' on google. I mean, all
that happened was a directory inode was unlinked, right?
Well, fast forward to the next morning, Im totaling up how much
iTunes I'm going to have to re-buy, thinking 'Do I have any vital
work stuff that was on there only?' , etc.
Test copy of Data Rescue doesn't find much....
I go looking again, in Terminal., in desperation.
Eventually, I look in Previous Systems. Apple has only ever put the
System and Library folders in there.
With Tiger, the User directory goes in there as well.
SIGH!!!!
I quickly round up some disk space large enough to hold stuff, and
use ditto in the Terminal to copy my user directory to another drive
for safe-keeping.
As to what happened the first time? I'm now thinking it's the install
via Firewire or possibly my USB2 card. I tried two more times from
the FW DVD, and got errors, (different ones) each time.
I tried installing it with the G4 in FW target mode connected to my
Pismo (which upgraded to 10.4 without a hitch)
This time the install went fine, but the resulting system wouldn't boot.
I eventually removed the CDRW put the DVD back in, and took out the
USB2 card. This time the install went fine, no problems.
Now I have to restore my old user directory and hope everything goes
well.
Off to have fun storming the castle!
--
Bruce Johnson
This is the sig that says 'NI!'
--
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