KarlimusMeridius

Q: If we do an OSX reinstall from utilities ?

Will it still keep our files?

 

We are rebooting with Command R so that we can access the osx utilities, it is intended to Reinstall osx, it is not clear if this will overwrite our existing files and software or just reinstall the operating system! Any takers? : )

Customer support, Mac OS X (10.7.3), Customer support and reinstall disk

Posted on Jan 27, 2016 2:29 PM

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Q: If we do an OSX reinstall from utilities ?

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Niel,

    Niel Niel Jan 27, 2016 2:31 PM in response to KarlimusMeridius
    Level 10 (312,610 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 27, 2016 2:31 PM in response to KarlimusMeridius

    Your files will remain unless a problem occurs.

     

    (138888)

  • by KarlimusMeridius,

    KarlimusMeridius KarlimusMeridius Jan 27, 2016 2:32 PM in response to KarlimusMeridius
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 27, 2016 2:32 PM in response to KarlimusMeridius

    Will it allow us to set up an account as we locked ourselves out of it by accident in the get info window of the hard disk : (

  • by KarlimusMeridius,

    KarlimusMeridius KarlimusMeridius Jan 27, 2016 2:34 PM in response to Niel
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 27, 2016 2:34 PM in response to Niel

    Hi Neil, thanks for that we are going for the reinstall, find it difficult to believe that Apple would allow an account to be locked out (Grey out) if we were testing what the account settings did.

  • by steve359,

    steve359 steve359 Jan 27, 2016 2:39 PM in response to KarlimusMeridius
    Level 6 (14,032 points)
    Jan 27, 2016 2:39 PM in response to KarlimusMeridius

    Apple cannot lock out all experiments.  "Repair Permissions" is supposed to undo damage from personal experiments, and ElCapitan SystemIntegrityProtection locking critical directories is supposed to further prevent experimental-damage.

     

    The users in this forum can help guide you before running other experiments.

  • by Grant Bennet-Alder,

    Grant Bennet-Alder Grant Bennet-Alder Jan 27, 2016 7:14 PM in response to KarlimusMeridius
    Level 9 (60,904 points)
    Desktops
    Jan 27, 2016 7:14 PM in response to KarlimusMeridius

    If your other thread is accurate, you manually locked yourself out of your Startup Disk by changing its permissions.

     

    Neil gave you explicit instruction in his User Tip for how to fix that.

    kmosx: I accidentally set a disk's permissions to No Access

     

    Did you follow them? Did it work? If not, you need to go, step by step back through his instructions and be sure you understand what was supposed to happen at each step. There were some substitutions you were supposed to make, for example he wrote:

     

    sudo chown root "/Volumes/volumename/"


    You are supposed to know that when he wrote volumename, you enter the volume name of the drive you modified (which by default is Macintosh HD)


    You are asking divergent questions without providing enough information. You are getting sidetracked away from the things that will fix your problem.

  • by KarlimusMeridius,

    KarlimusMeridius KarlimusMeridius Jan 27, 2016 7:39 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 27, 2016 7:39 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

    You always this rude and presumptuous? Leave you to it!

  • by KarlimusMeridius,

    KarlimusMeridius KarlimusMeridius Jan 27, 2016 7:43 PM in response to Niel
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 27, 2016 7:43 PM in response to Niel

    Hi Neil, we reinstalled Yosemite via the Utilities mentioned and then continued with El Capitan, it resolved the issue! Thanks.

  • by steve359,

    steve359 steve359 Jan 27, 2016 7:43 PM in response to KarlimusMeridius
    Level 6 (14,032 points)
    Jan 27, 2016 7:43 PM in response to KarlimusMeridius

    You set the permissions on ALL directories in the system to "anyone can do anything" instead of asking first how to safely clean unwanted material.  Then you asked two different questions in two different threads.

     

    It seems you performed this operation without having a valid backup, which is very risky.

     

    The easiest recovery path is "restore the backup, then ask how to safely clean".  As an alternate ... Niel, who is probably the smartest person in the ASC, gave you step-by-step instructions that you should follow.

  • by KarlimusMeridius,

    KarlimusMeridius KarlimusMeridius Jan 27, 2016 8:14 PM in response to steve359
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 27, 2016 8:14 PM in response to steve359

    ...and you should read the replies before such misguided advice and intervention!