subject: Mac Data Loss Due To Home Directory Deletion [print this page] Mac Data Loss Due To Home Directory Deletion
Mac OS X is a UNIX-like operating system and thus it has pretty same directory structure as of UNIX. The operating system facilitates you to create a Home directory, which contains all your personal data. A new Home directory is created whenever a new user is created. Mac assigns disk space to the user where he/she can store data. The Home directory itself is stored in the User folder. The data is totally safe from unauthorized access and thus prevent needs of Mac data recovery solutions.
In a multi-user environment, when you delete a user from your Mac OS X computer, you must also delete the corresponding Home directory. In Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar or later versions, the Home directory is treated differently. When the system administrator attempts to remove Home directory, the following error occurs-
"The item ' Deleted' cannot be moved to the Trash because it cannot be deleted."
Although, the folder is marked as Deleted' but it still exists there. The disk space cannot be freed up. In Mac OS X 10.0 and 10.1, the Home directly cannot be removed by simply dragging it to Trash Bin. In order to permanently remove it, you are required to use Terminal commands. Follow the given steps to remove Home directory using Terminal-
Log into your Mac machine as an Administrator.
Open Terminal.
Enter sudo rm fr/Users/shortname\ deleted. Here shortname' denotes name of the user that has to be deleted.
Press Return key.
Enter Administrator password when attempted.
Press Return key.
In modern versions of Mac OS X operating system, such as Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and 10.6 Snow Leopard, administrator can simply remove the Home directory by dragging it to Trash. However, you should always create a valid backup of all your important data before deleting Home directory. Otherwise it can cause serious data loss.
Backup is the best solution to safeguard against data loss. If you have a valid and updated backup, it is pretty easy to recover Mac data by restoring it from backup. Mac file recovery from backup does not require sound technical skills.
If the backup is not updated, you need to perform data recovery Mac using third-party Mac file recovery software. The file recovery Mac applications are incorporated with advanced scanning algorithms to ensure absolute Mac recovery.
The Mac recovery software come equipped with simple and rich graphical user interface to offer easy HFS+ recovery, without demanding sound technical skills. They let you safely recover Mac files as of their read-only conduct.
Stellar Phoenix Macintosh Data Recovery is comprehensive Mac recovery software to recover Mac data from HFS, HFS+, HFSX, HFS Wrapper, and FAT file system volumes of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, 10.5 Leopard, 10.4 Tiger, and 10.3.9 Panther.
