Crash course guide to user file locations on a Macbook
21 September 2012, 06:34 PM
#1
Crash course guide to user file locations on a Macbook
Got a macbook thats 10 months old...its died. So much for Apple reliability, eh. 
Anyhoo, it hasn't been backed up, and I've been asked to get user data off it before it goes off to a Genius under warranty.
The hard drive is faulty as its reallocating loads of bad sectors, but it is still readable (for now), so I guess the bad/corrupted sectors are where the OS is and why it won't boot.
So a little help would be appreciated; I don't use macs whatsoever, so just to save me the hassle a idea of the default directories where main user data and itunes data.music, email etc. is held would help
PS I'm doing this via PC with Macdrive....anyone know if there is anything more suitable, or will that do the job?
TIA
Anyhoo, it hasn't been backed up, and I've been asked to get user data off it before it goes off to a Genius under warranty.
The hard drive is faulty as its reallocating loads of bad sectors, but it is still readable (for now), so I guess the bad/corrupted sectors are where the OS is and why it won't boot.
So a little help would be appreciated; I don't use macs whatsoever, so just to save me the hassle a idea of the default directories where main user data and itunes data.music, email etc. is held would help
PS I'm doing this via PC with Macdrive....anyone know if there is anything more suitable, or will that do the job?
TIA
21 September 2012, 07:13 PM
#2
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Providing the user hasn't moved things about, everything would be under:
<HardDriveName>/Users/<UserName>/
You'll see folders inside <UserName> for music, documents, pictures, Desktop. Library is another one that will contain prefs and I believe Mail.
If it's a single user machine there will probably only be one folder in /Users/ and that'll be the one you want.
Bottom line, the folder with the users name in /Users is what you want.
MacDrive should be good enough, I have used it in the past and it's been very good.
<HardDriveName>/Users/<UserName>/
You'll see folders inside <UserName> for music, documents, pictures, Desktop. Library is another one that will contain prefs and I believe Mail.
If it's a single user machine there will probably only be one folder in /Users/ and that'll be the one you want.
Bottom line, the folder with the users name in /Users is what you want.
MacDrive should be good enough, I have used it in the past and it's been very good.
22 September 2012, 12:44 AM
#5
They already have a NAS and external drives. Just the music wasn't synced to it, nor the pictures. Easy oversight I guess 
...I wouldn't know how to configure it anyway as I don't use the things.
...I wouldn't know how to configure it anyway as I don't use the things.
Last edited by ALi-B; 22 September 2012 at 12:46 AM.
22 September 2012, 01:50 PM
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If they were using Time Machine then they would have explicitly needed to go in and stop those folders from being backed up as TM will do the whole disk by default. It is a case of plug in external, turn on time machine, point it at the external, tell it to backup, and providing the drive remains on, it'll perform incremental backups on it's own.
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