My Mac Is Acting Like A PC

[Bender]

I have had my iMac for over a year now and never had a problem untill today.
Now it is acting like a PC. When I loaded Safari it acted like the first time I set it up. Same with mail. My mail had to be set up again and it won't recognize my password.
I have the same setup on my laptop and my PowerMac at work and I have always been kind of a computer geek so it is not something real simple (I think)
Any Suggestions

Thanks

[Muzza]

Seems like a flakey hard disk. perhaps a disk scan?

"dust off and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure"

[LSRdigital]

Bender,

Would you happen to be running Panther on your iMac? And did you turn on FileVault? I ask because this sounds exactly like what a lot of other users have reported. They lose their preferences for Safari, Mail and other aps like iTunes, and the Keychain no longer saves new passwords.

[Blutus]

I have had my iMac for over a year now and never had a problem untill today.
Now it is acting like a PC. When I loaded Safari it acted like the first time I set it up. Same with mail. My mail had to be set up again and it won't recognize my password.

Hi,

This happens when too less space is left on your HD for the system to write it's cache, swap etc files.
With OSX it is adviced to keep 25% from your HD free for this purpose. Now to your Mail problem:
before you set up a new account you should move this folder to the desktop to NOT loose your mail:

Your home directory folder > the LIBRARY folder > the MAIL folder > and now you'll see a folder
which is named after your mailaccount

Now you've moved the folder it's safe to setup a new mailaccount. After you are done, quit MAIL and
you'll discover in the MAIL folder a brand new folder with the name it had previously. Make it empty,
and copy the "old" contents in it.

Fire up mail. Ready to go !
(Needless to say that you have to make some space before you do this procedure !)

Success !