Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!iuvax!cica!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu!francis From: francis@cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu (RD Francis) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: My machine is possessed - Folder from Hell Message-ID: <76812@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Date: 8 Feb 90 16:00:50 GMT References: <15543@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> <200@brain.UUCP> Sender: news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Reply-To: RD Francis Organization: Ohio State University Computer and Information Science Lines: 30 In article <200@brain.UUCP> root@brain.UUCP (Chuck Shotton) writes: >yang@mist.cs.orst.edu (Sherry Yang) writes: >>We have discovered a folder on one of the MacIIs in our lab that has nothing >>in it, but it will not let us throw it away. It kept coming back with a >>"File busy or folder not empty" message. > >I've had this problem before and it's VERY hard to fix. Here's what happens. >The author of Finder incorrectly assumes that a non-zero number of files in a >folder indicates it isn't empty. Unfortunately, negative numbers are non-zero, >and this is the problem.... >Anyway, using FEdit you can track down the offending folder's directory entry >and set the negative file count back to zero. This is the HARD part.... Perhaps this is awfully naive of me. If the problem is that the folder has a negative number of files in it, isn't it just possible that, by copying a file into the folder "enough" times, you could make the folder think that it had 0 files in it? For users who don't have FEdit, or are nervous about digging around in their disk directories, IF THIS WORKED, it would be easier (probably) and less nerve-wracking (definitely). Alternately, perhaps having a file in it would reset the number of files counter to the correct value, in which case adding a file, deleting it, and then trying to delete the folder might cure the problem. Just a couple of possibilities... -- R David Francis francis@cis.ohio-state.edu