rjohnson@nemesis.mpr.ca (Robbin Johnson) (05/18/91)
While in the middle of my daily rambles through the world of A/UX, the Finder all of a sudden lost all knowledge of my disk and the files, folders and applications there on. I guess the best way to describe what has happened is to tell you what I had, what I was doing when things blew up, and what is left. What I had - I suppose it could be classified as a regular A/UX set up. I was logged in as myself (not root) and on the desktop was the root and MacPartition file systems, my home folder and a couple of folders I had dragged out of my home folder. The Word and Mac Draw application icons where also there (the applications themselves were not running). I had two command shell windows and one or two folders open. I was running MacX at the same time but this does not seem to have been a part of the problem (I hope). Also, about an hour earlier I had been playing with exported file systems and mounting them from a Mac running MacOS and Wollongong's Pathway Client. No one other than myself has the root password and the exports file limits the machines that can mount the exported file systems. The only extra DA I have installed is ATM. What I was doing - Immediately prior to the disaster, I was using the command shell to rename one of the folders (directories) that was also "living" on the desktop. Since I did not see the folder's name change (under the icon) after I "mv'ed" the directory, I double clicked the folder and I (my memory is fuzzy here due to the ensuing panic) believe it opened at least once (still no name change). I then tried to click on the name under the icon to change it, but I could not get the I beam cursor. All of a sudden I started getting alert boxes when I double clicked the folder which stated something to the effect that the file/folder no longer existed. Attempts to open my home folder or the other folders on the desktop were also answered by this same alert box. After some more panic, I clicked on the root partition icon and all that is there is some (all) of the original dot files, the .desk directory and the FILES file! None of the folders normally in the root folder are there. No /usr icon. No /tmp icon. Nothing. If I hop over into the command shell the files and directories are all still there with the right modified times. Nothing is truely gone, it is just that the finder can no longer find it. Logging in as root gives the identically same situation - nothing accessable other than a portion of the root directory. What is left - After logging out and logging back in, the only thing on the desktop is the two disk partition icons. I have checked the /.desk directory and the two files in there 'localhost' and 'nemesis' are empty. The .desk in my home directory has an empty 'nemesis' file. I can still do everything through X11, but I am totally shut out from the Finder and all those wonderful Mac applications. The desk accessories are still available under the Apple, but they can only access the few files I can see in the root folder. Someone please tell me what to do besides reinstall everthing from scratch. I do not have a CDROM drive available just now and therefore cannot reinstall. Where or where is the command/application/secret that will allow me to rebuilt my desktop. I have the manual set on order but it is stuck in Cupertino and Apple Canada is slower than <insert your favourite trendy saying here>. Robbin. -- Robbin W. Johnson rjohnson@mpr.ca MPR Teltech Ltd. ``Yesterday the Moon, today LEO, tomorrow???''
rmtodd@servalan.uucp (Richard Todd) (05/18/91)
rjohnson@nemesis.mpr.ca (Robbin Johnson) writes: [summary--all the MacOS-specific files for desktop-type info have been eaten.] >Someone please tell me what to do besides reinstall everthing from >scratch. I do not have a CDROM drive available just now and therefore >cannot reinstall. Where or where is the command/application/secret that >will allow me to rebuilt my desktop. I have the manual set on order but Ok. The files that seem to hold the MacOS-style desktop info. are in the System Folder directory (either in your home directory if you have a personal System Folder, or /mac/sys/System Folder). Cd to there (remembering to put a backslash before the space, e.g. "cd /mac/sys/System\ Folder", as spaces are ordinarily significant to the shell), and blow away these files: Desktop DB Desktop DF .fs_dirIDs .fs_cache Then go into the MacOS environment. There should be a pause while it rebuilds the desktop, but after that you should be back to normal. Well, mostly--the special icons for the various types of A/UX files (text file, bin. file) etc. won't show up, and neither will icons for the docs created by the various apps on your system. The Finder only reads the icons & filetypes associated with an application when it opens the folder containing the application. The cute little icons for text file, etc. you normally would see originate in the /mac/bin/CommandShell file, so you need to open up (from the Finder) the /mac/bin directory, and any others which contain apps you use. NOTE: you must do all this while running as root! For some arcane reason (read: "obscure braindamage"), , the Finder won't read the icons and file type info out of an app. if it can't open it for *writing*! Once you're done with all this, you may want to stash away copies of the Desktop DB and Desktop DF files. Those are the ones that seem to have the icon and filetype information. This way, if this happens to you again, you can just blow away the existing files, copy the saved Desktop D? files in, and log in again without having to worry about going on a Great Icon Hunt. I can't guarantee that this procedure will always work, not being privy to the details of just what exactly all those undocumented files do, but the couple of times I've done it it always worked. (Oh, yeah, this is under A/UX 2.0. I don't know if they've changed the desktop file mechanism under 2.0.1). -- Richard Todd rmtodd@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu rmtodd@chinet.chi.il.us rmtodd@servalan.uucp "Elvis has left Bettendorf!"