Entire User Folder Disappeared

Question

Entire User Folder Disappeared

I was using my computer and went to grab a file from my Documents in my User folder and the entire user folder has disappeared. There are no folders in it at all. All of the shortcuts to my documents, music, pictures, etc., and show up on the left side of the finder window are also gone. Computer was functioning like normal. Super weird. Thought it was just a glitch and restarted and I got the dialog boxes that come up when you do a fresh install or upgrade OS. When I logged in to my user it looked like a fresh install...all of my applications are still there, and any thing that wasn't in my user folder is still there, but still not a single thing inside the user folder. I know the files are there cause I can see the terabyte of information on my drive when I look at it under About this Mac. I ran Disk Utility first aid and this is what I got.

Repairing file system.

Volume was successfully unmounted.

Performing fsck_apfs -y -x /dev/rdisk8s1

Checking the container superblock.

Checking the EFI jumpstart record.

Checking the space manager.

Checking the space manager free queue trees.

Checking the object map.

Checking volume.

Checking the APFS volume superblock.

Checking the object map.

Checking the snapshot metadata tree.

Checking the snapshot metadata.

Checking the extent ref tree.

Checking the fsroot tree.

error: drec_key object (oid 0xb6b4e): invalid hash (0x0, expected 0x98bb0) of name (.DS_Store)

error: drec_key object (oid 0xb6b4e): invalid hash (0x0, expected 0x2f70be) of name (.Trash)

error: drec_key object (oid 0xb6b4e): invalid hash (0x0, expected 0x1b55b1) of name (Desktop)

error: drec_key object (oid 0xb6b4e): invalid hash (0x0, expected 0x32b8ad) of name (Documents)

error: drec_key object (oid 0xb6b4e): invalid hash (0x0, expected 0x385b2a) of name (Downloads)

error: drec_key object (oid 0xb6b4e): invalid hash (0x0, expected 0x1b853a) of name (Library)

error: drec_key object (oid 0xb6b4e): invalid hash (0x0, expected 0x264e8) of name (Music)

error: directory valence check: directory (oid 0xb6b4e): nchildren (28) does not match drec count (26)

error: drec_key object (oid 0xb6b4f): invalid hash (0x0, expected 0x31623a) of name (LaunchAgents)

error: btn: invalid btn_table_space.len (0)

fsroot tree is invalid.

The volume /dev/rdisk8s1 could not be verified completely.

File system check exit code is 0.

Restoring the original state found as mounted.

Operation successful.

But those files still aren't there. Help??

Mac Pro

Posted on Apr 16, 2022 8:03 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

BDAqua

Level 10

245,189 points

Apr 16, 2022 10:37 AM in response to frankthetank87

Gulp! :(

I know of no way to repair it, Do you have a Time Machine backup to Restore to/from?

Might install the OS to an external drive & try to scavenge the drive for files, but the longer you use the drive the less likely you'll recover all.

Data Rescue II...

http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php

Virtual Lab...

http://www.binarybiz.com/vlab/mac.php?PHPSESSID=48b398a7879fa364a82736a2b9bf955a

This one would require another HD with plenty of space to recover to.

You should use another Boot Disk or other Mac with this one in Target mode to do the recovery.

They have a free demo to see what it could recover.

on file recovery...

Trccharleshanks to Kurt Lang…

I had to recently recover a file I deleted (about a month ago). FileSalvage ran, but the way it accesses the drive to look for deleted items is incredibly slow. My version of Data Rescue was too old to run in Monterey. But it also suffers from the hours long process of examining a drive.

SubRosaSoft (FileSalvage) folded. If you go to subrosasoft.com, this is all you get. A very simple few lines of text:

Thank you to all of our customers over the years. SubRosaSoft has regretfully closed up shop. Inquiries regarding purchase of our domain or software assets may be directed to mhurlow@subrosasoft.com.

Data Rescue is still available, but is now subscription only. No way was I paying those prices for something I use less than once a year. That sent me on a search for something better.

I haven't tried Stellar's product, so I can't comment on that one. But I did test Disk Drill.

It'll do three free recoveries before you have to pay for it. But the kicker is the speed. I ran it and it said it was ready in less than 30 seconds (if it was even that long). Since every recovery software I had ever used before took a minimum of 8 hours to look through a 1 TB drive, I figured that couldn't be right. So I set if for a deep scan. Also done in less than 30 seconds. Easily found and recovered my file.

I don't know what methods their app uses to locate deleted items, but I didn't hesitate to purchase the full version for something that works that fast.

"Stellar Phoenix Macintosh - Mac data recovery software, recovers data from damaged, deleted, or corrupted volumes and even from initialized disks."

They have a trial version, so I guess you can see if your data can be recovered...

http://www.stellarinfo.com/mac-data-recovery.htm

—

FileSalvage is an extremely powerful Macintosh application for exploring and recovering deleted files from a drive or volume. FileSalvage is designed to restore files that have:

* been accidentally deleted.

* become unreadable due to media faults.

* been stored on a drive before it was re-initialized/formatted.

https://www.subrosasoft.com/product-category/file-recovery/

Data Rescue...

http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php

But the longer you use the drive the less likely of any recovery, & if it's an SSD with TRIM enabled you can forget recovery.

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Answer 2

HWTech

Level 9

60,320 points

Apr 17, 2022 8:24 PM in response to frankthetank87

Did you customize the location of your user accounts and relocate them to another drive? If so, then perhaps the macOS upgrade just created a new user account on the internal drive while your old user account(s) are still located at their customized location.

What may have happened is if macOS upgrade was installed, then it may have been installed to the incorrect APFS volume, which then would possibly have recreated new empty user accounts on another read+write APFS volume. If this happened, then your data and old user accounts are likely still there, but hidden away on a different AFPS volume. Usually macOS 10.15+ will put those items into the "/Users/Shared/Relocated Items" folder.

About the read-only system volume in macOS Catalina - Apple Support

Or those items may still be on the old APFS volume which is now a read-only macOS system volume. If this is the case, then you will need to view the root of the system volume and navigate to the "Users" folder on it. Within the Finder, click the Finder Preferences and click on the "Sidebar" button making sure "Hard Drive" is checked under "Devices". Then click on your drive on the left pane of the Finder (default is "Macintosh HD"), but yours may actually be "Macintosh HD - Data" instead. Navigate to the "Users" folder where you should see your old macOS user account(s). You should in theory also see "Macintosh HD - Data - Data" as well depending on the version of macOS being used and whether I'm correct on macOS being installed/upgraded to the wrong APFS volume.

You should always have frequent and regular backups of your computer and all external media (including the cloud) which contains important & unique data.

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Entire User Folder Disappeared

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