Strange problem with the finder

[KaDJiiS]

I'm having problems with a ghostfolder. I deleted it, but it kept showing up in the trash, so I moved it to the desktop to remove it with the terminal.

I can not delete it with the terminal, and I cannot move it back to the trash. The following picture shows the problem. The ghostfolder is named "Dido".

http://hosted.yourimg.com/05/160/17/Picture1.png

I rebooted, this did not help.

In the terminal listing you can also see that the desktop contains 3 screenshots while only 2 pictures show up on my desktop.

I don't know what to do...

[donquichote]

The man pages for rm say: "The -R option implies the -d option."
Try
sudo rm -dR Dido

[KaDJiiS]

Quote: Originally Posted by donquichote The man pages for rm say: "The -R option implies the -d option." Try sudo rm -dR Dido

The problem seems to be changing all the time; now the folder "Downloads" has disappeared from my desktop both in the terminal and visually on the desktop. The folder Dido has disappeared in the terminal listing, but still shows on the desktop. Therefore I cannot try to delete it with the terminal right now. I can still not move it to the trash.

[hayne]

I'm not sure, but you might be experiencing the symptoms of filesystem corruption. I would advise you to stop trying to delete this folder for the moment and instead proceed to repair the filesystem by booting from the Install CD and then using the Disk Utility that is on the CD to do "Repair Disk".
See this Apple doc:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Be sure to repeat immediately if it finds anything to fix. Keep repeating until it says the disk appears to be okay.

After that, please show us the results of the following command:
ls -l ~/Desktop
(Copy & paste the command into a Terminal window, press Return, then copy & paste the results back here so we can see.)

[KaDJiiS]

Quote: Originally Posted by hayne I'm not sure, but you might be experiencing the symptoms of filesystem corruption. I would advise you to stop trying to delete this folder for the moment and instead proceed to repair the filesystem by booting from the Install CD and then using the Disk Utility that is on the CD to do "Repair Disk".

I did like you said, restarted from the install CD and ran disk utility. There *is* a problem:

Checking Catalog file
Invalid catalog record types
Volume check failed

It cannot be repaired with disk utility (it just stops saying "Disk utility stopped repairing. The underlying task reported failure on exit").

Any other ideas?

[hayne]

Quote: Originally Posted by KaDJiiS I did like you said, restarted from the install CD and ran disk utility. There *is* a problem: Checking Catalog file Invalid catalog record types Volume check failed It cannot be repaired with disk utility

This indicates a serious problem with your disk's filesystem.
You should immediately backup any files that are important to you as the problem may get worse.
After that, you could try a more powerful disk utility, e.g. "DiskWarrior",
or you could erase your disk, then reinstall from the Install CD, and then restore the files that you backed up.

What version of OS X are you using?
If you are on Panther (or earlier) and you have an external disk available, you might find it most convenient to erase that external disk, then use "Carbon Copy Cloner" to clone your internal disk to the external, then erase the internal disk, finally use CCC to clone the external disk back to the internal.

[KaDJiiS]

Quote: Originally Posted by hayne This indicates a serious problem with your disk's filesystem. You should immediately backup any files that are important to you as the problem may get worse. After that, you could try a more powerful disk utility, e.g. "DiskWarrior", or you could erase your disk, then reinstall from the Install CD, and then restore the files that you backed up. What version of OS X are you using? If you are on Panther (or earlier) and you have an external disk available, you might find it most convenient to erase that external disk, then use "Carbon Copy Cloner" to clone your internal disk to the external, then erase the internal disk, finally use CCC to clone the external disk back to the internal.

Thanks for your help. I will try doing as you suggest. I'm using Tiger 10.4.1 (with the latest security update).

[KaDJiiS]

Quote: Originally Posted by hayne This indicates a serious problem with your disk's filesystem. You should immediately backup any files that are important to you as the problem may get worse. After that, you could try a more powerful disk utility, e.g. "DiskWarrior", or you could erase your disk, then reinstall from the Install CD, and then restore the files that you backed up.

4 words: DiskWarrior rules & Thank you !

All problems are fixed. Turns out there was a whole lot to repair. I think it was the "6 missing folders had to be recreated" that caused all the trouble:

• All errors in the directory structure such as tree depth, header node, map nodes, node size, node counts, node
links, indexes and more have been repaired.
• 17 files had to be recovered. The files may have been lost or thrown away. You must inspect the files to determine
the extent of any damage. You must also determine whether the files should be discarded.
• 11898 files had a directory entry with an incorrect text encoding value that was repaired.
• 1 file had a duplicate name that was repaired.
• 2 files had an incorrect key that was repaired.
• 6 missing folders had to be recreated.
• 25 folders had an incorrect item count that was repaired.
• 15 folders had a directory entry with an incorrect custom icon flag that was repaired.
• 92 folders had a directory entry with an incorrect text encoding value that was repaired.
• Incorrect values in the Volume Information were repaired.
• Critical values in the Volume Information were incorrect and were repaired.
• 6 folders will have more items.
• 4 files had a Name that changed.

Thanks again for your help.