Disk Utility Accident & Weird Symbol In Owner Name In Get Info

Recently, I was trying to troubleshoot some error messages I was getting with Carbon Copy Cloner, the source of which revolved around a mysterious file in my Shared folder. This file wouldn't delete no matter what I tried, so while searching for answers I heard that repairing permissions might help. Well, I forgot to read the message at the top of Disk Utility when I opened it. You know, the one that tells you that Disk Utility cannot repair permissions on a disk with open files or an on your current startup disk. Well, I ran disk utility without booting from the OS X install disk first. That probably explains why it made a bunch of changes to permissions.
Well, as I was about to close Disk Utility, I realized what I'd done, and I figured that it was no big deal. All I had to do was boot from the install disk and then run Disk Utility again, and it would repair the permissions the correct way. At least, that's what I thought. Then, when I did so, Disk Utility didn't make near as many changes as it did the first time. And, because I didn't realize until too late that I might need the output from the first time I ran Disk Utility in case something went wrong (i.e. I needed to undo any of the changes it made) I didn't even try to save it, if that is even possible.
Of course, this all didn't seem so bad. I thought that maybe the reason Disk Utility didn't make so many changes the second time was because some of the changes it made the first time really did need to be made, and thus that's why they weren't undone when I ran it again. However, I knew some thing was wrong when I tried to get info on a random file on my desktop just to verify that the owner was correct and everything. As soon as I either clicked or hovered over get info, I got the little rainbow spinning wheel for a second or two, which never happened before. Then, when I clicked the Ownership and Permissions triangle in the Get Info panel, I noticed something amiss. In the slot where the file's owner was supposed to be displayed, which should read "myusername(me)" the slot instead displayed some east asian character where my username should have been. So far, that, and a longer delay for the Get Info panel's appearance are my only symptoms, but I'm worried there may be further reaching repercussions to my system that I haven't discovered yet.
So, I guess what I'm asking is, based on my symptoms, can someone figure out what they think is wrong, and then possibly help me fix it. I don't know technical terms, but is it a corruption in the file that holds all the names of the users on my system? Is there a cache or preference file somewhere I can trash or edit to fix this. Or can I run fsck to fix this? Or, if it is a corrupted file like that I may have copy of it. I didn't mention it above, but Carbon Copy Cloner did manage to clone pretty much all of the folders on my hard drive in alphabetical order on an external firewire drive except for a few of the last few hidden folders and my Users folder.
Anyway, thanks in advance to everyone who takes the time to read this post.

Hi ailurous,
I run repair permissions all the time without first booting from the install disk. It works fine. On the other hand, attempting to Repair Disk without booting from the install disk will not work.
I'm thinking something other than faulty permissions is causing your problems..
That being said, I'd suggest booting off your install disk, running Disk Utility, and selecting First Aid>Repair Disk.
If it says that it couldn't repair the disk, just keep running it until it gives you the Disk Successfully Repaired message.
Let us know if this helps or if you get some error messages.
Bob

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In terminal type cp followed by a space and drag that tutes file into the terminal window. I think it will look something like this (don't hit return yet).
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I had booted into a copy of leopard on an external disk.
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roshanc wrote:
Cheers V.K.
Data recovery should be easy and straight forward because I didn't format/erase it and none of the data is corrupt.
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Message was edited by: V.K.

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Last login: Thu Apr 10 18:03:08 on console
wr-130-64-184-253:~ betsyk$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *320.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            319.2 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
wr-130-64-184-253:~ betsyk$ diskutil cs list
No CoreStorage logical volume groups found
wr-130-64-184-253:~ betsyk$ mount
/dev/disk0s2 on / (hfs, local, journaled)
devfs on /dev (devfs, local, nobrowse)
map -hosts on /net (autofs, nosuid, automounted, nobrowse)
map auto_home on /home (autofs, automounted, nobrowse)
wr-130-64-184-253:~ betsyk$ df -m /
Filesystem   1M-blocks   Used Available Capacity iused   ifree %iused Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2    304425 274476     29698    91% 70329971 7602931   90%   /
wr-130-64-184-253:~ betsykirtland$

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Hi ailurous,
I run repair permissions all the time without first booting from the install disk. It works fine. On the other hand, attempting to Repair Disk without booting from the install disk will not work.
I'm thinking something other than faulty permissions is causing your problems..
That being said, I'd suggest booting off your install disk, running Disk Utility, and selecting First Aid>Repair Disk.
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Bob

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1. If you break your post into paragraphs it is much easier to read.
2. I have no idea what your post is referring to, and how - if at all - it relates to iPhoto.
3. It's a good idea to re-read what you've posted, and ask yourself how it might look to someone who doesn't know you and doesn't know what's going on with your machine.

Disk Utility Accident & Weird Symbol In Owner Name In Get Info

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