Lime wire & iTunes, music missing help!

ok classic 9.2.2 imac loads of memory.
lime wire
and itunes.
no firewalls

last time i was using lime wire i let people access/share my itunes folder for music files, i opend itunes today and nearly ALL my music files are gone! no longer on my mac.. anywhere! i did not deleat them, i always check my trash b4 i hit deleat

anyone else had this happen or know what has happned? has some little barstard somehow removed my files?
only the files in the designated folder have gone, no thers?????

[Lord of the Rings]

Do a search for mp3 on your computer. Sharing thru iTunes doesn't allow them to copy or delete. But it also depends on your network set up & whether any one else has access to your computer. Why not use a utility like Norton Unerase (a part of Norton Utilities) to see if they've been erased.

there are some MP3s left, the ones that were not in the "shared" folder. my mac is for home use, no network here. i never bother with un-erase apps as i always check my trash b4 deleating it, no matter what is in it. and for 3 years i have not deleated anything i need.

sharing may not let peeps deleat, but if anyone gets my IP addy which is soooo easy they can do anything, have run latest virus check, nothing showd up.
if a hacker did get in, why only deleat the music? why not any of my other files?

[Lord of the Rings]

Sure someone else doesn't have access to the computer?
Well good time to think about keeping your shared material backed up onto zip or cd/dvd, external HDD, etc.

only my house mates live here, and they are too stupid to know what to look for.. one cant use a PC at all, other keeps asking me for help on emails!!
so i seriously doubt they would even know where to look for that designated folder, and no no one else has been in the house since then, i turn off my mac when i am not home.

[Lord of the Rings]

I've never heard of such a thing happening on a mac. I've heard of OS 9 viruses (had one myself.) But that didn't come from the net but a fellow student. I don't know. Perhaps someone is gaining access via the net. Keep your firewalls up then to be on the safe side (if you have one.) It is not possible for anybody to delete via LW. But they might do it via some other way.

By the way, sure the files are not invisible? I know it sounds ridiculous but, ... measure the size of the folder to see how large it is. Select closed folder & apple & i keys. Files can be invisible on a mac. Need a utility to change them back. Another option is corruption to your HDD database. Norton Utilities & DiskWarrior can repair those things. Have you tried rebuilding your desktop: Reboot whilst holding down Command (apple) & Option keys & allow it to rebuild.

i did check the folder with a invisable finder program, nowt, did check the folder size already.
virus.. maybe. i did run a virus scan when i found out they had gone. and it came up wiv nowt

had to DL most the music back on to iTunes.