Spotlight not working. Need to re-index HD, but I'm not an Admin

Scripting Forums AppleScript | Mac OS X
#1

We recently had our admin rights taken away, so Big Brother can watch over us better. When the IT geniuses created my new account, it screwed up my Spotlight. I’ve had this happen before, where Spotlight won’t find files that I can plainly see using Finder. The way I fixed it was to open Spotlight Preferences, click on the Privacy tab and add the HD the the list. Next, remove it from the list. Doing so will cause Spotlight to re-index where all of the files are located, so it can find them.
My problem is that (I guess since I’m not an admin) I can’t add the HD to the list. Wondering if there’s a backdoor to doing this via applescript. Has anybody ever scripted Spotlight before? Actually, it’s more like scripting System Preferences.

slimjim5811

#2

The Spotlight search database is owned by root (since it’s system”not user”wide), so an applescript/shell-script/whatever is not going to work without a admin password.
I suggest just asking the IT guys to do it for you.

#3

there is also a back door via the OS X install disks.

cheers.

#4

Thanks for the replies. I had the IT guy come down this morning and log on as an admin. Then I followed my procedure listed above. The indexing took about 30 minutes, then he logged out an I logged in. I searched for a file and whaddaya know? Spotlight found it, just as I suspected. I am productive again!:lol:
slimjim5811