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HELP! I lost my user accounts... nothing works

I purchased a external hard drive to help me create space on my iMac G4 with a 40GB hard drive. I called the local Apple store to make sure I didn't move anything over that would mess everything up. They said I could move my user accounts over, so I did. Apparently that was not true, and in doing so I pretty much lost everything. The only thing I can do is open itunes, my dashboard, and my calender. Nothing else in my dock will open, and my HD and external HD disappeared from my desk top.

The apple store said I need to recreate my user accounts. I do not want to pay them the $ to do it if this is something I can do.

Please help! Thank you,

Tyler

iMac G4, 700mhz, upgraded to 775mb ram, 40gb HD

Posted on Oct 8, 2008 8:08 AM

18 replies

t.e.r. Author

Level 1

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Oct 15, 2008 12:41 PM in response to a brody

I talked to Mac Life again, and it looks like the total repair cost would be about $200. Which isn't TOOOO bad.

Brings my total cost up to $400. Just gotta decide if it's worth it or not.

t.e.r. Author

Level 1

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Oct 17, 2008 2:54 PM in response to t.e.r.

One more question. Am I going to have issues if I get a hard drive from a PC installed in the iMac? Or will it just need to be reformatted?

What I have is a WD800 80GB hard drive that I just pulled out of a PC that crashed. Will that work?

a brody

Level 10

83,293 points

Oct 20, 2008 5:58 AM in response to t.e.r.

A hard drive formatted for a PC will not be bootable on a Mac. Depending on its format:

NTFS = it won't be writable by the Mac without third party help
FAT16, FAT32 = it may have some naming conventions messed up and the PC side will see some invisible files made by Mac OS X that begin with a period in their names.

MediaFour's MacDrive will allow PC operating systems to read Mac formatted drives.

If virtualization or emulation is used, most of those solutions also have means of separating the formatting while still enabling both systems to boot on a single hard drive. If you tell us what Mac model you have, does it have an Intel or PowerPC processor, and what emulation or virtualization solution you intend to use, we can try to find out for you if that may be helpful.

HELP! I lost my user accounts... nothing works