Weirdness in Macintosh HD

[ricede]

i went to Mac Hd in my machine this morning and found something i had never seen before - see image.

the library/system/user folders are still there but there must be hundreds of other "files" or whatever they are.

can anyone please tell me what they are and how to bring the HD folder back to normal.

[VirtualTracy]

I've had weird stuff showing in menus before too, like doubling up of items and then there was this:

http://img.skitch.com/20090123-tts21gbpnirdgsg1hxce318trt.jpg

That was quite a long while ago and I can't recall the outcome but it was shortlived.

I wonder if it's a font thing?

[ricede]

thanks for the quick reply VirtualTracy - seems maybe like something different - mine have little file icons next to each item.

on a seperate note - how does one post a screengrab in the post window rather than adding as attachment. i tried copy/pasting the pic straight into the window but only got the name of pic showing up .

[VirtualTracy]

I use Skitch to host my images, it's awesome ... not sure if you still can only use it via invite but I have plenny ...

Is that your Finder window sidebar that's all mucked up? How about the Finder menubar and pull down menus? What about the usual apps you use ... they affected?

[ricede]

Is that your Finder window sidebar that's all mucked up? How about the Finder menubar and pull down menus? What about the usual apps you use ... they affected?

pulldowns are fine - heres another grab showing finder window.

all apps seem to be fine - nothing unusual - just this weird thing in Mac Hd

[ataraxia]

This looks a bit like filesystem corruption. I suggest you start your computer once in Safe Mode (hold Shift while starting up, until it's well into the boot cycle). This runs a lot of repair routines, including the "Repair Disk" (aka fsck) tool, and cleaning out caches. Expect that it will take a bit longer than usual to start up that way. Once it comes all the way up, reboot again and let it start up normally. Hopefully the weird files will then be gone.

[VirtualTracy]

I was gonna ask you whether you'd restarted your Mac since this but the above seems appropriate ... give it a go ...

[trevor]

ricede, have you added or changed fonts in any way recently?

Trevor

[ricede]

ricede, have you added or changed fonts in any way recently?

Trevor

no - nothing changed there

[ricede]

This looks a bit like filesystem corruption. I suggest you start your computer once in Safe Mode

no that didnt change it

[ricede]

as its a few days since i went into the mac hd - it could have happened anytime. the fact that it hasnt seemingly affected the workings of the mac - meant that i wasnt aware of it. the only thing ive updated in the last couple of days is to quicktime 7.6, nothing else has been changed.

[hayne]

Please launch the "Terminal" application (under /Applications/Utilities) and copy & paste the following commands (all together), press Return, then copy & paste the results back here so we can see:

id
ls -ld /
ls -l /
echo "done"

[ricede]

there are 1000's of lines - how can i send them ?

[ricede]

sorry stupid question

when i pasted the terminal window contents into the post i got this message

The text that you have entered is too long (71209 characters). Please shorten it to 15000 characters long.

[hayne]

Okay - let's try again with revised commands to take account of the fact that you apparently have thousands of files at the top level of your drive.

Please launch the "Terminal" application (under /Applications/Utilities) and copy & paste the following commands (all together), press Return, then copy & paste the results back here so we can see:

id
ls -ld /
ls -l / | head -n 80
echo "done"

[ricede]

Last login: Fri Jan 23 14:51:13 on ttys000
ric-edes-macbook-pro:~ ric$ id
uid=501(ric) gid=20(staff) groups=20(staff),98(_lpadmin),81(_appserveradm),79(_appserverusr),80(admin),101(com.apple.sharepoint.group.1)
ric-edes-macbook-pro:~ ric$ ls -ld /
drwxrwxr-t 933 root admin 31790 21 Jan 03:17 /
ric-edes-macbook-pro:~ ric$ ls -l / | head -n 80
total 45285
-rw-r--r-- 1 ric admin 0 20 Jan 22:36
-rw-r--r-- 1 ric admin 0 21 Jan 00:34 =Ä@
-rw-r--r-- 1 ric admin 0 20 Jan 21:47 f
XùhyZ
-rw-r--r-- 1 ric admin 0 20 Jan 22:55 ˚Fdh·HÛ!M
-rw-r--r-- 1 ric admin 0 20 Jan 21:30 ˙öƒÉã÷RHL,˛ÁRbc‹_Ÿ1¢ï·ï°¶P¬ì*uNMˇπØ
-rw-r--r-- 1 ric admin 37 21 Jan 00:56 ˙≤u
-rw-r--r-- 1 ric admin 7 20 Jan 23:27
-rw-r--r-- 1 ric admin 0 20 Jan 23:52 P°i≠aÆ6cbTe
-rw-r--r-- 1 ric admin 109 21 Jan 02:46 Ü{Œˇ¯‹7›ˇ¡NÛ‰¥à˘ÊR¨S˙Áȧ١xò˛
-rw-r--r-- 1 ric admin 0 21 Jan 00:38 âxX‹€íIäOÙc´∑K˚
w-r--r-- 1 ric admin 9 21 Jan 01:19 —èÚ›Å
-rw-r--r-- 1 ric admin 69 21 Jan 00:27 ñ™uȺgoáúl‘
-rw-r--r-- 1 ric admin 38 20 Jan 21:43 ≈«wŒ~ÉnπÓ
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-rw-r--r-- 1 ric admin 289 21 Jan 02:53 6§DÆy
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-rw-r--r-- 1 ric admin 0 20 Jan 21:27 fl$–Z±
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-rw-r--r-- 1 ric admin 30 21 Jan 03:12tí3¿
-rw-r--r-- 1 ric admin 0 20 Jan 22:00
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-rw-r--r-- 1 ric admin 118 20 Jan 21:53
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-rw-r--r-- echo "done"^[[?1;2c 1 ric admin 0 20 Jan 21:45
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ÑZÅ-r--r-- 1 ric admin 0 21 Jan 02:54
‹èR•Pε?[ÑÉïüUÈ7ßXVÂÊì˛ùin 160 20 Jan 22:38
-rw-r--r-- 1 ric admin 148 20 Jan 22:32 .ê˘˜@Ê®£¡∂∞˘¸flø÷âÏ4£
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-rw-r--r-- 1 ric admin 173 20 Jan 23:24 *w^—∞F…
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-rw-r--r-- 1 ric admin 150 20 Jan 23:54 ¢^Ìe
ric-edes-macbook-pro:~ ric$ echo "done"1;2c

[hayne]

So it seems that these files were created on January 20 & 21.
A lot of the files are of zero length.

In the hope that we can get some clue as to what created these files, let's try the following commands (copy & paste them into a Terminal window as before, then copy & paste the results back here so we can see):


ls -l /û
hexdump -C /û
ls -l /Ú
hexdump -C /Ú
echo "done"

[ricede]

Last login: Fri Jan 23 15:06:29 on ttys000
ric-edes-macbook-pro:~ ric$ ls -l /û
ls: /û: No such file or directory
ric-edes-macbook-pro:~ ric$ hexdump -C /û
hexdump: /û: No such file or directory
hexdump: /û: Bad file descriptor
ric-edes-macbook-pro:~ ric$ ls -l /Ú
-rw-r--r-- 1 ric admin 114 20 Jan 21:31 /Ú
ric-edes-macbook-pro:~ ric$ hexdump -C /Ú
00000000 c3 aa 11 c3 b7 c3 a3 c2 a3 c3 87 10 e2 80 a1 29 |ê.÷ã£?..?.?)|
00000010 e2 88 8f c3 b7 03 c3 ac c2 a8 1f c3 a6 75 e2 80 |?..÷.ì¨.æu?.|
00000020 94 c3 a7 c3 b8 03 24 4a c2 a5 4f c2 b6 c5 92 c3 |.çø.$J¥O¶?.?|
00000030 92 28 7f c3 bf 01 e2 81 84 e2 88 9e e2 80 ba c3 |.(.ÿ.?..?..?.??|
00000040 ad c2 ae 1e e2 82 ac 08 5f 22 50 4f 41 35 c2 a7 |?®.?.?._"POA5§|
00000050 0f e2 88 82 c2 ba c3 91 5d cb 99 65 37 e2 88 9a |.?..º?.]?.e7?..|
00000060 2e 37 c3 82 c3 a2 05 1b 2c 45 5a e2 89 88 08 c3 |.7?.â..,EZ?...?|
00000070 84 6f |.o|
00000072
ric-edes-macbook-pro:~ ric$ echo "done"

[hayne]

I don't get any clues from the above file (Ú) contents.
Let's look at another of the files:


ls -l /6§DÆy
hexdump -C /6§DÆy
echo "done"

[ricede]

Last login: Fri Jan 23 15:30:22 on ttys000
ric-edes-macbook-pro:~ ric$ ls -l /6§DÆy
ls: /6§DÆy: No such file or directory
ric-edes-macbook-pro:~ ric$ hexdump -C /6§DÆy
hexdump: /6§DÆy: No such file or directory
hexdump: /6§DÆy: Bad file descriptor
ric-edes-macbook-pro:~ ric$ echo "done"

[hayne]

Since we're not getting any clues as to how these files came to be created, I'd advise doing the following:

1) Do "Repair Disk" (different from "Repair Disk Permissions"!) in Disk Utility when booted from the Install CD/DVD. I.e. you restart from the Install CD/DVD, then run the version of Disk Utility that is available from one of the menus there (in 10.4.x, it's the Utilities menu), then go to the First Aid tab, select your boot drive, and click "Repair Disk" (NOT Repair Disk Permissions). If Repair Disk finds any errors at all, repeat the repair until no errors are found.
See this Apple doc:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214

2) In Finder, create a new folder on your Desktop - e.g. call it "WeirdFiles".
Then select all of the "weird" files and drag them to that folder.
(Be careful not to select or drag any of the usual files/folders that normally appear at the top level of the drive.)

[ricede]

thanks for all your help and patience hayne

i ran 'disk repair' from the booted dvd and it said that all was well

also put all weirdfiles in a desktop folder - presumably i can now delete that folder ?

[hayne]

It's probably okay to delete that folder. But I'd keep it for a few more days just in case someone else has any ideas on getting clues from these files. It doesn't take up much space.