Entire folder inexplicably became shortcuts
After some period of time I needed to retrieve something in that folder to find that almost everything within that folder had inexplicably become shortcuts (aliases).
It seems that all of that information is now permanently lost, because all of the files are mere kilobytes in size.
There is some more weirdness though:
SOME of the files remained normal AND became shortcuts
SOME files did not become shortcuts at all
Nothing seems to have happened since whatever event caused this.
I lost original copies of certain things. I'm not exactly devastated but I'd like to know how this happened so it doesn't again in the future. Has this happened to anyone else?
Also, but unrelated, the same thing happened on my dashboard with my stickynote widget. I never thought stickynotes on the dashboard would be permanent or anything, but again only SOME of them were affected, and again I lost some irreplaceable data.
I am the only person that uses this computer. Anyone else that ever touches it does so under my supervision.
macbook pro late early 2010, Mac OS X (10.5.8)