# Booting to Darwin. How do I get back to GUI?



## dorianjazz (Dec 17, 2008)

I have a mac mini Running OS X v.10.4.2, And I made a silly mistake. In viewing info/permission on my mac mini's hard disk, I thought I would be extra protective by converting "others" to have "No access". My computer froze a while later (too little memory, I think), and I restarted. It booted to Darwin.

I am able to log in to Darwin just fine. But I'm lost as to what to do to undo my mistake. I won't do it again. I swear. But how do I get back to the Mac OS GUI I'm familiar with? I'm guessing it's just a matter of resetting the hard disc permission for "other" back to the "read only" setting...?


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## peterh40 (Apr 15, 2007)

Use the chmod command to (use 'man chmod' to view help) change permissions on the folders.


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## Headrush (Feb 9, 2005)

Which files/folders did you change permissions on? (System, User?)

You may have to do a *diskutil repairPermissions /dev/disk0s2*

(disk0s2 maybe different on your HD, post *diskutil list*)


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## dorianjazz (Dec 17, 2008)

I've done some reading up on UNIX commands. I think I need to chmod 711 on my hard disc. That's what I had altered the public access on, through it's INFO [command+i] window. It is named "Macintosh HD" (with the space in it, unfortunately). It is located at: /Volumes/Macintosh HD. And I'm guessing this is considered a directory rather than a file... right?

I've read how to change the name of a file to get rid of a space in the filename with the command: mv file name filename. But I haven't read that this would work on the name of a directory (or volume). I'm hesitant to experiment with making uncertain command changes to my hard drive's name. So how would I safely change the name of a directory with a space to one without the space?
Thanks again!


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## Headrush (Feb 9, 2005)

Chmod will work recursively on folders too if you use -r option.
As for spaces, they shouldn't be a problem as long as the space is escaped.

(Just means you have to put a \ in front of all spaces.
For example Macintosh HD would be Macintosh\ HD )

Don't rename your directories, no need.
I'm pretty sure chmod 711 is NOT what you want. (Need to know the exact folders you changed.)

Can you post the output of

```
ls -l / /Users/
```


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## dorianjazz (Dec 17, 2008)

OK, I'm learning to really like unix. But I think I'm at a dead end with my mac mini that boots to Darwin (I'm using my e-mac now). I bought my mac mini 3 years ago. I guess since then I've always had it auto-login as my own name, not as the root name. I was totally new to OSX at the time and didn't reallize the importance of that very first login.

I have by now discovered that the mistake I made was that while logged in under my own name (as an admin) I changed the permission settings for groups & others to "no access". At least that's what I think I did. It allowed me to, but won't allow me to undo it because my hard disc is "owned" by the root user, not by my own-name user.

The simple solution would be to login as root. But I don't remember how I first logged in 3 years ago. And I understand now that this forum may not permit assistance in that area. That's unserstandable.

I'm thinking now that reinstalling OSX might be the solution, but I don't know the ramifications. Will I lose all my other files by doing so? Will that even work at all, anyway?

Also, there's a CDR in the cdrom-drive now, becuase I was trying to burn a backup when this whole problem started. Is there a convenient unix command to eject a disc? I don't even know how to find the blank CDR in the unix file directory, but I know it's in my machine. But I don't know if it's still blank, or if anything had successefully written to it by the time my computer froze.

By the way, when I go to /Volumes and do the ls -l command, I get this info: lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1 [date] Macintosh HD

I greatly appreciate whatever feedback you can give. Happy holidays!


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## peterh40 (Apr 15, 2007)

You can try the "archive and install" so that when you re-install Mac OS X you keep your documents and settings (they are moved to another folder):

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1710


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