Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!cbnewsl!bonnie!prg
From: prg@bonnie.ATT.COM (Paul R. Gloudemans)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: My machine is possessed - Folder from Hell
Summary: A technique I used successfully.
Message-ID: <4131@cbnewsl.ATT.COM>
Date: 14 Feb 90 22:24:52 GMT
References: <15543@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> <2840@goanna.oz.au> <1945@acad.cut.oz> <489b3b84.15840@valley.UUCP>
Sender: nntp@cbnewsl.ATT.COM
Reply-To: prg@bonnie.ATT.COM
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 59

In article <489b3b84.15840@valley.UUCP>, pfluegerm@valley.UUCP (Mike Pflueger) writes:
> 
> Well, it's funny, but I recently got one of those folders from hell too.
> Seems to be a fairly common problem.
> 
> And it's not something simple like an invisible or locked file;
> rebooting, rebuilding the desktop, or anything like that will clear it.


My problem was indeed having a non-zero valence for folders with no
files or folders contained within.

I've had these kind of folders around for some time too ... until
yesterday!  Thanks to some almost correct suggestions that came
accross the net, I DID get rid of them.  The procedure I followed was:

1.)	Make absolutely sure there were no invisible/locked files in the
	folder by using MacSnoop to verify emptiness. (You can use several
	other tools as well like ResEdit.)

2.)	Rename the folder(s) to HellFolderN or something you KNOW is
	unique on your disk where N is 1, 2, etc. for as many
	HellFolders as you have.  By renaming them all you will only
	need search the disk once in the steps below to fix all of
	them.

3.)	Using MacSnoop (or some other suitable disk editor), open the disk
	volume and do an ASCII search for the string HellFolder (without 
	the appended digit).

4.)	If the string HellFolderN is immediately followed by 0100 0000 XXXX
	hex, then change XXXX to 0000, this is the valence word in the
	directory entry (the 01 tells you it is a directory entry).
	NOTE: the 00 following the 01 and the 0000 need not be zeros but
	they always were in my cases, these are reserved and flag bytes.

5.)	Repeat steps 3.) and 4.) for **ALL** occurrences of HellFolder to
	be found on the disk.  This step is necessary since directory
	entries get moved around and you want to make sure you get the
	active one and not just some fragment left somewhere on the
	disk.  The searching will take some time if you have a large
	disk.

6.)	Quit MacSnoop and immediately reboot.  (I think this is
	necessary because the OS may be keeping the directory entry in RAM
	or maybe the disk RAM cache is responsible.  All I know is I
	had to do it to be able to trash the folders.)

7.)	After rebooting the HellFolder(s) should be trashable! (They were
	for me.)

If you feel squeemish about this, back up your disk first and practice
on a floppy looking for the directory entries as described above.

If this works for you, post a note to the net so that others may feel
more confident in using the technique and BY ALL MEANS post corrections
if you think I described something incorrectly.

Good Luck!