Parallels for Mac RESET my MacBook to its factory state

C

CoolJay

Bit poster
Hello.

I recently installed the trial version of Parallels Desktop for Mac on my MacBook, and Parallels RESET my entire system to its factory state. All of my e-mails, calendar appointments, contacts, iWeb sites, etc are GONE!

After speaking with AppleCare, I was referred to this forum. Here is the problem in detail:

I installed the trial version of Parallels Desktop for Mac, and setup a new virtual machine, for Windows XP. Before I could install Windows, I opened Mail.app to obtain my registration number. Mail.app wouldn't open to its normal state. Instead, it asked to setup a new user. Figuring it was a fluke, I rebooted the system. Upon rebooting, the entire system had been reset to its factory state. I was even prompted to install the latest updates for OS X and iLife, which I had already installed! My programs, documents, music, and pictures are still on the hard drive, but everything else is gone.

Please, please, help me to restore my system to its previous state. This is totally unacceptable. Needless to say, it looks like I will not be purchasing the full version.
 
Umm... That is really odd. This is not something I have heard of on any system in any suituation.

I'm also not entirely sure that this is normally possible. A fluke in a program could wipe your home directoy, which would delete settings for programs (like your email), but I don't think a fluke could possible "reset a computer to defaults" as the deault information is not stored anywhere on your computer. To reset a Mac to defaults you have to boot it off the install DVD, as all the information is on the DVD (i.e. not anywhere on your Mac)

Some new updates for iLife came out yesterday, so it is possible that these are just normal updates that you didn't already install.

With that assumption, here is how you would look for your data:

Open a Terminal. Type (without quotes) "cd /Users/" (press enter) then type "ls -l" (enter).

The computer should print out a list of the users of your Mac. By default there should only be one user. If there are two users listed, then you are probably logged into the wrong user somehow and your information is in the other user.

If on the other hand, there is only one user, then your information is most likely gone. In this case, I really hope you made a backup...

(I am not affiliated with Parallels)
 
It's Possible

Unused_user_name, thanks for the quick reply.

It's definitely possible - I have no idea how, but it happened. I ran the commands in terminal, and I'm still the only user. Everything is completely back to its original state. I agree that it would normally take a CD reinstall, etc to do this.

Whatever the case may be, my e-mails and contacts are gone, my calendar is empty, etc. Everything was running perfectly, until I installed Parallels. I didn't even get to the point of installing Windows yet.
 
I reccommend you collect all of the system logs out of /var/log and save them someplace, then call Parallels tech support and let them know what happened.

They might want all those logs, and the system automatically deletes them after some time, hence saving them someplace.

Also, see if you can find any dates in any of the logs from before this happened. If you can then you know for sure that your computer was not reset. Look in the .0.gz logs after unzipping them with stuffit, I think those should be the oldest ones.

Wiping a home directory makes all the applications seem to reset as all the user's data is lost, but this is entirely a diffrent thing then resetting the computer to factory defaults. Wiping a home directory would wipe all e-mails, contacts, documents, reset the background wallpaper, and make applications think that they have never been run.

That being said... this is a bad thing! I'm as we speak making a backup of my home directory in case this happens to me.
 
CoolJay said:
Unused_user_name, thanks for the quick reply.

It's definitely possible - I have no idea how, but it happened. I ran the commands in terminal, and I'm still the only user. Everything is completely back to its original state. I agree that it would normally take a CD reinstall, etc to do this.

Whatever the case may be, my e-mails and contacts are gone, my calendar is empty, etc. Everything was running perfectly, until I installed Parallels. I didn't even get to the point of installing Windows yet.
Click to expand...


i have file vault turned on and after my macbook pro crashed because of parallels (and cisco vpn), all open files were corrupted.
this included a lots of preference files and it really seemed like my macbook pro had been reset to factory state (but of course it wasn't).

grabbing my backup disk and copying over my backed up homedir library folder did the job to restore my setup.

lg philipp
 
I have a tough time imagining how this happened as a result of parallels.

I'm not saying it didn't happen but I believe something else was playing too.

I could see how if the disk was vaulted that perhaps it could corrupt everything and force programs to not open and ask for new users etc. It just seems really strange.

I mean Parallels might corrupt one file. Say your address book. But why would it take away OS updates etc? I mean that is virtually impossible.

I guess I'm saying, don't blame Parallels for this. Something else is going on. Ask many of us here on this forum. Parallels has been amazingly good at what it does. Sure there are problems, Mac Pro is one of them, USB is another but simply put Parallels is very good.

Mark
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top