Thanks for the info Sam, A sorry tale that highlights the need for regular backing up. I always add that it has to be a better option to save an attachment rather than dragging it out of the mail, at least then you get the opportunity to re-name the file. As you say it is highly unusual to see a file without a numeric or letter based name. I can only imagine he had unwittingly highlighted all the characters before the dot and pressed the delete button?
Good luck with the salvage operation. Chris On 24 Aug 2011, at 10:16, Sam - MacAmbulance wrote: > Hi All > > My client has just suffered an extremely bad case of data loss caused by > Parallels Tools, serious enough for me to warn you all in the hope that you > never get caught out by it. > > A client of his emailed him a powerpoint presentation and, for whatever > reason, the filename consisted only of a single dot (I can hear the UNIX > geeks beginning to cry now). He dragged the attachment to his desktop and it > crashed Windows Explorer. He dragged the attachment to his OS X desktop and > again the machine crashed. He restarted to find that his entire Desktop > folder had been wiped. Unfortunately for him he had several hundred GB of > files on his Desktop, including his Parallels Virtual Machine file (don't > ask!). > > For the uninitiated, every folder on a Mac has two invisible files within it. > A file with two dots as the name ".." and a file with one dot ".", two dots > denotes the parent folder, a single dot denotes 'this folder'. By dragging an > item with a single dot into a folder, you essentially replace 'this folder' > with the contents of the single dot file. > > Quite why his client named the file just "." is beyond me; How his computer > allowed him to do so is another thing entirely. As an average user, my client > would've had absolutely no idea of the importance of the . and .. files, so > would never know the consequences of replacing them. It's only lucky the file > wasn't named ".." or he would've lost his entire home folder, replacing the > parent folder of Desktop! > > The really important question is why didn't Parallels Tools warn him of the > impending replacement of the folder he was dragging this file into? I tried > to replicate the bug in Outlook 2011 for Mac, saving the "." attachment to a > folder on the freshly wiped Desktop, I was warned "this will replace the > folder 'test', are you sure you want to do this". > > I haven't tried it with VMWare Fusion so not sure if it's purely a bug > transferring the files between operating systems. It's also a fairly obscure > situation as I've never seen anyone able to name a file simply "." in all my > years of being a nerd. > > Unfortunately, in this case, my client's Parallels Virtual Machine file was > over 100GB, so we had excluded it from Time Machine to keep from filling up > the backup drive (with semi-regular manual backups to a different disk, not > done by the client since Nov 2010). Ironically his Time Machine backup had > also been complaining about free space and had been unable to back up for > over a month (which he informed me of only this morning). > > So, it's off I go to attempt to recover anything i can from the deleted space > on the drive, then recover from his Time Machine backup and restore his copy > of Windows from a year ago. > > MacBook Pro > OS X 10.6.8 > Parallels 6 latest build as of last week > 500GB hard drive > > What a difference a dot makes………………… > > Sam > MacAmbulance > Providing affordable Apple & PC services > > Sam Mullen > 07747 778022 > http://www.macambulance.co.uk > [email protected] > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Sussex Mac User Group" group. > To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/smug?hl=en-GB. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sussex Mac User Group" group. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/smug?hl=en-GB.
