Finder not happy

[RichieL]

I am using a G4 IMac Flat screen running 10.3.9 I have been using Macs back to OS 5 and I have never experienced any thing like this.
I was copying some photos (about 150) from a folder to a CDR to archive when I hesitated for a nano second they got copied to my desktop I was able to hit the stop button in the progress box but that just crashed my system and gave me the spinning wheel until I had to turn the computer power off. All my applications work fine except the finder. In finder anything I select on my desktop does nothing, anything I select in the Menu bar just gives me a brief spinning wheel. If I’m in an application I can go to Logout and log in as a different user, the finder in that user acts normal. It appears that all of my contents are intact it’s just the finder in the administrator is choking on the many icons on the desk top, but will not let me select any of them to throw away. Is there some mode I can boot up in to clean up my desk top or solve this issue? Help

[yellow]

For future reference, you could have just let it copy everything to the wrong place and used Cmd-Z to undo (as long as you didn't do anything else to stand i the event loop).

But yes, you can fix this pretty easily. Do you have another admin account or root account that you can log into? If not, that's OK too, we can boot into Single User Mode and move the files that way. I don't know your level of UNIX knowledge.. You need to know your "shortusername".

Single User Mode way:

Restart holding down Cmd-S
At the prompt, type:

mount -uw /

Press Return, then at the prompt type:

mkdir /Users/shortusername/Desktop/oops

Press Return (note, all instances of "shortname" should be replaced by your account's shortname), then at the prompt type:

cd /Users/shortusername/Desktop

Press Return, then at the prompt type:

mv *.jpg ./oops

Press Return (note, we use *.jpg assuming all the files were JPEGs, and note, that is "mv*.jpg./oops"), and then at the prompt type:

reboot

Press Return.

Now login as normal and all your waylaid pictures should be in the folder called "oops" that is on your Desktop.

[RichieL]

For future reference, you could have just let it copy everything to the wrong place and used Cmd-Z to undo (as long as you didn't do anything else to stand i the event loop).

But yes, you can fix this pretty easily. Do you have another admin account or root account that you can log into? If not, that's OK too, we can boot into Single User Mode and move the files that way. I don't know your level of UNIX knowledge.. You need to know your "shortusername".

Single User Mode way:

Restart holding down Cmd-S At the prompt, type:

mount -uw /

Press Return, then at the prompt type:

mkdir /Users/shortusername/Desktop/oops

Press Return (note, all instances of "shortname" should be replaced by your account's shortname), then at the prompt type:

cd /Users/shortusername/Desktop

Press Return, then at the prompt type:

mv *.jpg ./oops

Press Return (note, we use *.jpg assuming all the files were JPEGs, and note, that is "mv*.jpg./oops"), and then at the prompt type:

reboot

Press Return.

Now login as normal and all your waylaid pictures should be in the folder called "oops" that is on your Desktop.

Thank You for the help! Its fixed!
One more thing where can I find a list of those nifty commands and shortcuts?
Thank You again..such promt service!

[yellow]

The Aqua interface (the GUI of OS X) is built on top of Darwin, Apple's version of "UNIX". Here's a good tutorial to get comfortable with UNIX and the command line, specifically tailored for OS X:

http://osxfaq.com/Tutorials/LearningCenter/index.ws

Learning this is key to helping keep your Mac safe, secure, happy, and running well.

Glad it worked for you!