Creating files in user directory results in "Operation not permitted" error

Question

Hello everyone,
I have a FileVault-secured home directory on my PowerBook G4 running OS X 10.4.6 which gives me some headache, as you can see from the following Terminal session:
arepty-powerbook:~ arepty$ touch fubar
touch: fubar: Operation not permitted
I am definitely in the correct directory, logged in as the correct user, have enough free disk space and the directory has the correct permissions, as you can see below:
arepty-powerbook:~ arepty$ pwd
/Users/arepty
arepty-powerbook:~ arepty$ whoami
arepty
arepty-powerbook:~ arepty$ id arepty
uid=501(arepty) gid=501(arepty) groups=501(arepty), 81(appserveradm), 79(appserverusr), 80(admin)
arepty-powerbook:~ arepty$ df -h | grep '/Users/arepty'
/dev/disk2s2 74G 64G 11G 86% /Users/arepty
arepty-powerbook:~ arepty$ ls -l /Users/ | grep arepty
drwx------ 180 arepty arepty 6222 May 3 12:31 arepty
Am I missing something here or is my FileVault-directory perhaps fubar? Thanks in advance for any help you guys might be able to give me.
Cheers,
Alex
PowerMac G5 & PowerBook G4   Mac OS X (10.4.6)  

Answer 1

That is good to know, but it will probably make it ever harder to locate the cause of this problem. In the meantime, I made a backup of my FileVault-enabled user directory on my PowerMac and reinstalled the operating system on my PowerBook. During the backup, I have encountered a couple of I/O errors so I'm guessing either the filesystem was damaged (and could not be completely repaired by Disk Utility, which I have tried) or the hard drive is damaged.
Just to be on the safe side, I have ordered a new hard drive and exchanged it (wouldn't want to risk data loss with the old hard drive) and everything works perfectly again with a completely new user directory.
I am still wondering what caused all this trouble though, since I want to avoid another incident like this in the future.