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Desktop GONE.

I had 4 - 4.5 gigs free. I had a few applications open. I started up Quickbooks. It said there was an update. But that it couldn't download because my disk was full. I immediately checked my finder and I thought I saw the "available space" number blink but wasn't sure - it said I had about two gigs free. I quit a bunch of apps thinking that memory was filling up my disk space. Then I noticed that my Desktop was blank.

I normally have a ton of junk on my Desktop. I pulled open a finder window. Desktop was gone from the sidebar. I went to my home directory and looked. Desktop was gone as a directory. Nothing in my Trash.

I logged out and logged back in. Desktop gone.

I restarted. Desktop gone. Now I have over 5.5 gigs free.

Any way to get this back at all? I have a backup but it's not recent enough to get everything back; desktop is kinda my dumping ground.

And why, why, why did this happen? It's highly unsettling. It could have been any other directory on my computer, most of which are much more valuable.

Macbook 2ghz, Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Posted on Dec 15, 2007 10:52 PM

Reply
121 replies

Dec 15, 2007 11:30 PM in response to tangrams

Do you mean your screen is blank at the desktop or just the icons are gone? Like the hard drive icon? Have you tried going to the finder and clicking on the desktop folder to see what is in it?
Try going to your system profiler and see what it says about how much disk space you have left.
I saw another post where this happend to someone and there were a couple of replies. I wish I could remember which section it was in. If i run across it I will come back and post it.

Dec 15, 2007 11:54 PM in response to tangrams

Very Strange! This exact same thing happened to me tonight when a Quickbooks update dialog
window appeared. Same message, same result of much more drive space available and
nothing left on my desktop. NO sign of any of the folders or various documents anywhere.

If things are going to be tossed I want to be the one doing it!

Anyone have ideas on how to recover the missing folders?

Dec 16, 2007 1:22 AM in response to MsMercury01

I went back to my desktop and added a few pics and documents then re-opened Quickbooks
and the same message came up about an update being available but there isn't enough space available
for the 100 byte download (yes 100 bytes!) and that I need to free up some space and try again.

Upon clicking the OK button to close the notice window, everything I just put on the desktop disappears and can't be found anywhere, leaving just the MacHD icon in the upper right corner.

Not Nice!

Dec 16, 2007 11:41 AM in response to tangrams

This happened to me this morning (not 1/2 hour ago) just as you described! Quickbooks as apparently destroyed the files on my desktop save for the harddrive icons. I have used spotlight but all the files are missing. I have tried to repair disk permission but it did not work. I have tried relaunching the finder, restarting the computer... nothing seems to work.

Any suggestions to get back the files on my desktop greatly appreciated! Thank you.

Desktop GONE.

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