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Raschelle

Q: lost+found folder appears after failed disk repair?

Hi all,

I used Disk Utility to try and repair my internal drive last night (from Leopard DVD). It failed with some weird errors, which I didn't write down. (Bad, bad...but I was tired and frustrated and it was late). I then was not able to get my computer to start up. Just sat at the logo screen with spinning gears. I shut it down, via the power button and went to bed.

This morning I decided to try Target Disk Mode so that I could get a couple of files from the drive and use an iBook G4 until I could get the MacBook up and running again. It took a long time for the drive to show up on the desktop of the iBook.

After that, the MacBook started up just fine, but now there is a folder on the root level of the drive called "lost+found" and has odd stuff in it. There is a file called "iNode4538662" which seems to correspond to one of the error messages from DU (maybe missing node?) and is a Unix executable file. There is also a folder called "5410682" which has an empty "Contents" folder inside of it. DU now says the drive is fine, even though it said last night it couldn't fix it.

Anyone have any thoughts? Should I be worried about what's going on with the drive? I do backup, but I'm wondering if something's amiss.

Thanks!

(P.S. Sorry, but I wasn't sure which was the best forum to post this in. Hopefully, it's close enough.)

Message was edited by: Raschelle

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.5.6), 2.1 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo; 1 GB RAM

Posted on Apr 8, 2009 1:09 PM

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Q: lost+found folder appears after failed disk repair?

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  • by thomas_r.,Solvedanswer

    thomas_r. thomas_r. Apr 8, 2009 2:21 PM in response to Raschelle
    Level 7 (30,924 points)
    Mac OS X
    Apr 8, 2009 2:21 PM in response to Raschelle
    Raschelle wrote:
    DU now says the drive is fine, even though it said last night it couldn't fix it.

    Anyone have any thoughts? Should I be worried about what's going on with the drive?


    Absolutely! If this happened to me, I would not trust any important data to the drive without first erasing it completely and reinstalling the OS from scratch. You don't know how much data might have been corrupted by the disk damage, so keep any old backups you might have, and don't transfer old settings files to the new system -- redo all your settings from scratch.

    This might seem extreme, but if there are problems that Disk Utility can't fix, I personally would consider this to be a requirement.
  • by Raschelle,

    Raschelle Raschelle Apr 8, 2009 2:30 PM in response to thomas_r.
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 8, 2009 2:30 PM in response to thomas_r.
    Thanks. I had a feeling that was the case.

    Thankfully, I will be getting a newer hand-me-down in the office and I will start from scratch there, which I had already planned to do before this. I've been using the Migration Assistant since the early versions of OS X and I can tell it's time for a fresh start. Hopefully, whatever issues are going on with my current drive will stay minimal until I can get setup on the next computer, as it would be a pain to have to reset this one just to move to another computer in a week or two.
  • by floba,Helpful

    floba floba Apr 8, 2009 2:39 PM in response to Raschelle
    Level 3 (695 points)
    Apr 8, 2009 2:39 PM in response to Raschelle
    Welcome to Apple Discussions, Raschelle.

    As far as I know, Disk Utility uses the command-line program fsck to check the filesystem. If fsck finds errors, the corresponding files or chunks of files will be placed in /lost+found. fsck is common also for Linux, so [this page from the Linux Documentation Project on the Linux Filesystem Hierarchy|http://tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/lostfound.html] (click the link) contains some basic information which apply to Macs, too.

    The log-file for fsck is /var/log/fsck_hfs.log . Maybe you'll find some instructive error messages there.

    Concerning the folder lost+found, it should be safe to remove it. Although it won't do any harm if you just keep it. (By the way, I think it is hidden in Finder, isn't it? So it shouldn't come in your way, if you decide to keep it.)

    To play it safe you might want to run Disk Utility once more and make sure there are no more error messages.

    At last, [this article from Apple's knowledge base|http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1417] (again, click the link) might contain some interesting information as well.

    Good computing.

    floba

    (MN587)

    Message was edited by: floba
  • by direwolf8,Helpful

    direwolf8 direwolf8 Apr 8, 2009 2:39 PM in response to Raschelle
    Level 4 (1,280 points)
    Apr 8, 2009 2:39 PM in response to Raschelle
    The lost+found folder is a Unix filesystem component. When the filesystem is checked, any files or parts of files whose status can't be determined are put in that folder.

    It's not a good idea to delete the folder or its contents. It's a normal part of the disk maintenance procedure.