OSX 10.8.5 main admin account recovery?

[Background Noise]

Here's one for the Mac gurus, which so far I can't answer from the usual places.
(We seem to have given up on the dedicated Apple thread).

Partner has my old MacBook. She was a user when I had it. When I got a shiny new MacBook Pro she got the old one - clearly!

I'm thinking that what we probably did was make her account an admin account and deleted mine. Probably a duff decision. Anyway, she doesn't appear to have all the privileges that I have on my own machine. Specifically, we'd like to be able to see a folder in the Finder, Go, Option, library/application support which doesn't appear. We know the data is somewhere as it is available to the associated app.

I assume there must be a difference between a 'real' admin account and an account with admin privileges. Is there anyway to solve this without resetting everything? It would be convenient if we could, but it's not a show stopper.

[le Pingouin]

Which user is reported as owning the folder?

[mixture]

Background Noise,

As OS X is a BSD based platform, there is always the super-admin known as root. But direct usage of root is disabled by Apple in normal multi-user mode, you can only access it indirectly via the sudo tool.

But I digress. As far as I know, the user interface of OS X does not permit people to do what you purport to have done... i.e. delete all administrative users only leaving non-administrative users. I believe it forces people to retain at least one user with administrative privileges.

But no matter, you are where you are..... so let's try to fix the mess....

First, let's see if we can do this simply. Do you have an OS X 10.8 DVD ? I'm fairly certain there are menus in there you can use to tweak some stuff, although its been a while since I've booted off a 10.8 disk.

The alternative is longwinded, tedious and involves 100% of your time spent at the command line, which is a scary proposition if you've not spent much time there before....

As for the data ... it depends what you told OS X when you deleted the user. As I recall, it gives you two options "delete user" or "delete user and associated data".

Specifically, we'd like to be able to see a folder in the Finder, Go, Option, library/application support which doesn't appear. We know the data is somewhere as it is available to the associated app.

Actually, just a side-thought.

I trust you are aware that separate users on OS X have separate library etc. level folders (e.g there is a system level /Library and then user level ~/Library).

So it may be as simple as you having to poke around the ~/Libary of the deleted user rather than your user ? (assuming as mentioned earlier, you didn't choose the "delete data" option when trashing the user).

Sniff around the /Users/ directory level and see what you find in terms of your previous account.

[Background Noise]

Her account has admin privileges - as I said I think we made it an admin account before deleting mine. Maybe not, it was a while ago.

I wasn't aware there was a 10.8 DVD as it was upgraded from the app store.

Pingu - I don't know - you might be starting to stretch my competence!

[mixture]

I wasn't aware there was a 10.8 DVD as it was upgraded from the app store.

Actually, you may be right. There wasn't as it was an app store upgrade, it was the first release where Apple eliminated physical disks (which people always loose). But you can make a DVD from the app store download.

Try out my second post first though, it may well be you're just not looking in the right place.

[Background Noise]

Hmm, I think it's screwed up. I can't see any other user data. Logged in as her, I can't even access the guest folders, they have little no entry signs on them.

No matter, as I said, it's not the end of the world. It is working fine for everything she wants and I feel an upgrade coming soon. If only we knew when the next MacBook update was going to be. (Usually just after I buy one!)

You can burn the install file onto disc - you may even be able to make a bootable install disc, but would it have the recovery/disk utility stuff on it. Or is that what making a bootable disc does? Anyway, it will Mavericks all round in the next iteration.

[mixture]

Do you get prompted for username/password when clicking on the no-entry ones ?

[Background Noise]

No, it says:

The folder "Desktop" can't be opened because you don't have permission to see its contents