Did I just whacked by a virus?

[chamelion]

I've been using my wife's pre-loved Powerbook as my home computer, mainly for email and Internet. Its a G3 running OSX 10.2.8, and I haven't bothered upgrading the system because it's been working fine until now.

This morning I received a Software Update prompt asking me to download a 30 something mb file (Ithink it was an iPod updater), and that a restart was required.

When I restarted, I knew something was wrong when I saw a brand new dock and all my desktop clutter was gone. It's as though I just installed a new system. As far as I can tell, everything that was on my dektop at the time (lots) has been vaporised.

I guess my question is: does anyone know of a virus that comes in via a phoney Software Update prompt? It's a pretty scary thought, because I just believe they're from Apple and download them.

I seem to have lost all of my wife's emails (thousands), all of my emails (hundreds), mail preferences, my wife's mail account, and all of my Safari bookmarks (priceless).

I suspect I'm dead in the water with the missing mail and bookmarks. Anyone have any ideas? I sure could use some help.

Cheers,

Geoff

[denne]

I'm no tech, but this looks like you switched to another user account by accident (or the machine did). What does the systemprofiler say about your mac? still 10.2.8?

[chamelion]

Thanks denne, you were absolutely right. I've never struck that one before, and it had me absolutely foxed.

I read somewhere that a computer is like a friend you can never quite trust.

How true:)

Geof