Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!mintaka!ogicse!blake!rowen
From: rowen@blake.acs.washington.edu (Russell Owen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: My machine is possessed - Folder from Hell
Message-ID: <5642@blake.acs.washington.edu>
Date: 7 Feb 90 08:52:26 GMT
Reply-To: rowen@blake.acs.washington.edu (Russell Owen)
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Lines: 40

There are two basic reasons you might get an undeletable folder. The most common
reason is that some program is has that folder as its default directory.
The least common but hardest-to-fix reason is the disk directory is confused
about that file -- apparently the disk directory keeps a count of how many files
are in a folder, and if that number gets off (as can happen in a bad crash
or similar nastiness) forget about deleting the folder.

Here is a list of things I suggest you try, in order easy to hard.
Method 1 or 2 should handle the simple case. Method 8 should handle
the nasty case. Odds aren't very good on the others, but it's worth
playing around a bit before doing method 8 (backup up/initialize/restore).

1) reboot
2) reboot with no INITs
3) rebuild the desktop file (hold down command and option while you boot)
4) ran Apple's Disk1stAid and any other diagnostic software you have
5) look for viruses (I recommend Disinfectant, I think 1.6 is the latest vers.)
6) replace the system software (copy over new System, Finder, etc. files,
   and then run the installer)
7) run ResEdit, select the folder, and use the Clear command (suggested by
   somebody on the net whose name I've lost when I posted with this problem)
8) back up all the data (except the undeletable folder),
   initialize the drive using your hard disk management software,
   while you're at it, run a disk check and bad-block-zeroing utility
     if you have one-- LaCie's SilverLining is good,
   and then restore the data
9) it's hard to imagine (8) failing, but if you get this far, all I can think of
   is to reformat your drive, ignore the problem, or replace the drive.

Hope this helps.

Russell Owen
owen@phast.phys.washington.edu
owen@uwaphast.bitnet

P.S. for the nasty case, some people have recommended trying to edit the disk
directory to fix the offending file-count byte yourself. If you are interested,
somebody may have instructions. But messing with a directory is dangerous --
you REALLY should back up all your files first, and by the time you do that,
might as well play it safe and use method 8, IMHO. Not that I followed my own
advice -- I tried to edit the directory but couldn't find the right byte.