I bought my current machine (24" 2.4 GHz AL Intel iMac) shortly after Leopard was released and so it came with Tiger pre-installed and a Leopard installation disc.
At the time I was very busy (accounts, tax etc) and did not want to have the added complication of dealing with a new OS so I just migrated all my applications and accounts over from my 20" G5 iMac (also running Tiger). That was fine - no problems and I just continued with Tiger for the next 6+ months, never quite getting round to updating. Having recently returned from 6 weeks away, I decided it was finally time to upgrade - I decided against the "archive & install" because my computer is cluttered enough without "previous systems" to contend with. I preferred instead to just try the basic upgrade and rely on my SuperDuper bootable clone in the event of problems - which I trial booted and generally checked out prior to proceeding. Happy that I had a working bootable clone, I disconnected everything (except the mouse!) from the computer and ran the Leopard installation as an "upgrade". All appeared to go fine, I was told the installation was successful and I restarted the computer. That's when the problems started... Leopard started up OK but instead of presenting me with a list of accounts to select from, there was just a single login box with blank "username" and "password" boxes. I thought this a bit strange but put in a username/password combination - Leopard just shook its head. I tried the username/password for both password enabled accounts but no go. I had also had a couple of little accounts set-up with no password required to log-in - but I couldn't even log-in to those. Also, if I clicked the "Back" button - instead of a list of accounts there was just one called "other" listed! As a first quick check, I restarted the machine in Target mode and inspected it from the old iMac - superficially all seemed OK, all the account folders were in place and named as before, I also used Disk Utility to verify the disc - it checked out OK. My second approach was to restart from the install DVD. First I verified permissions - again all OK, then I used the reset password utility - all my accounts DID show up so I tried resetting the passwords (using the same original passwords) just in case the passwords had some how been "lost". I was advised that the passwords had been successfully reset, however on restarting the computer, Leopard still refused to let me login (to any account). At this point I fired up the old computer and went Googling: There was a similar documented problem on the apple knowledge base: <http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1543> However: - I had updated from Tiger, not 10.2.8 or earlier (though the accounts may have been progressively migrated from my original 10.2 G4 iMac - I don't remember that far back). - None of my passwords were 8 characters or more. So it didn't seem to exactly apply. I did actually fire up in single user mode - but the black screen and white text brought back nightmares of DOS and I chickened out of that!! There seemed to be quite a lot of info in the forums of people who had had similar problems, but the only solutions seemed to involve delving deeper into the system than I wanted to go - also seemed to be a lot of variations/degrees of success. At this point, I decided that I had spent more than enough time looking how to fix my broken installation and that I would feel much more comfortable to wipe everything and start with a clean installation. Feeling a little vulnerable that when I erased the disc my SuperDuper clone would be my only backup (and I would need to access it to migrate my accounts) I opted for some more insurance by using super Duper to backup my bootable clone from the external drive to a sparse disk image on my old G5 iMac. So, then I went ahead with a new "Erase and install", created a new "Intel Admin" account (for admin purposes only) updated to 10.5.4 (using the downloaded combo updater) and then let Software Update bring everything else up to speed until it told me "Your software is up to date. I then used the Migration Assistant utility to import all my accounts and applications from my bootable clone. This all seemed to go OK and on re-starting all my old accounts were available (with their original passwords). I tried out all the applications I use most often, had a general look around, did some browsing, sent & received some emails and generally convinced myself that all was now OK. I then erased my external firewire drive and cloned the new system over as my new bootable clone. As added insurance, I am keeping my old Tiger sparse image clone for a little while longer. OK. The point of all the above? Well, 1) To re-iterate what many people on the list have already said regarding the importance of ALWAYS having an up to date back-up. 2) To give the background info as to where my system is currently at, for my current problem/query: I just looking at the / level in finder (I guess I was always at the /~ user level during my previous checks) and there are a whole bunch of folders and aliases showing up which I'm not used to seeing. I've just been comparing and: (A) On my G5 iMac, with a fairly new Leopard installation (currently updated to 10.5.3) and just one user, I see 4 folders and one alias: Applications Library System User Guides and Information (alias) Users (B) On the final Tiger clone of my 24" Intel iMac prior to installing Leopard, I see the same plus 3 additional folders Software Downloads (user added folder) To Sort (user added folder) dev - seems to be empty (or contents hidden) I don't know what the dev folder is or does (Sharing and Permissions shows system, wheel & everyone - all as read only). (C) Currently the upgraded 24" Intel iMac shows the 4 folders + one alias that I can see on the G5, plus the two user added folders that I can see on the Tiger clone (presumably imported by Migration Assistant) PLUS folders: bin cores Developer private sbin usr Volumes PLUS aliases (all to folders in private): etc tmp var (D) The bootable clone of (C) shows all the visible files/aliases as (C) PLUS folders: dev (as on B) home net Now, my current thinking is that: 1) Various system folders/files which are normally hidden in Finder view show in the view of the bootable clone on the external firewire drive - which is why I see dev, home & net on (D) but not (C). I think this is pretty normal? 2) "Developer" and "Volumes" have the capitalised first letter and "Developer has a custom folder icon, so I'm assuming that they SHOULD actually be visible. 3) I'm assuming that bin, cores, private, sbin, usr, etc, tmp & var are system folders/files which should normally be hidden (like dev, home & net) - ie I could expect to see them on (D) but not (C) - but that somehow the updgrade/migration has rendered them visible. I should say that I HAVE repaired permissions to no effect. It strikes me that not only is having these files visible confusing, it is potentially dangerous (easier for accidents to happen!). Any ideas how to restore the default visibilities for these files - or is it a sign of deeper problems? TIA (hopefully!) Neil -- Neil R. Houghton Albany, Western Australia Tel: +61 8 9841 6063 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Unsubscribe - <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
