Solution for invalid directory item count, startup disk corruption and regular crashes

Hi,
My late 2006 MacBook (10.6.8) has recently started crashing quite frequently. The screen becomes dark and a multi-language dialogue appears stating that the computer must be restarted with the power button. When this occurs any audio which was playing begins to repeat/skip and the computer goes into complete lockdown. This is now happening perhaps twice a day or more under moderate use.
This morning I ran 'Verify Disk' in Disk Utility and the process was stopped, stating that I had two 'Invalid directory item counts' and 'the volume Macintosh
HD was found to be corrupt'. Here is a screenshot of the Disk Utility window:
I have rebooted, run a software update and rerun the disk verification but to no avail. I also booted using CMD-S, advised by an older post in another forum which suggested using 'fsck -yf' which ran and stated that the disk had been repaired.
I bought the MacBook second hand from an Apple dealer but it didn't come with an install disc so I am unable to reboot and repair the disk like that.
My questions, therefore, are what does this mean for my computer in the future, will either of these issues cause me more trouble?
What can I do about it without the install disc
And are these issues directly related to the crashes? (I have been running the computer connected to an external drive and monitor - for watching movies)
Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!
Twitch

Not much you can do without an install disc which can be purchased from Apple Store > Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard - Apple Store (U.S.)
multi-language dialogue appears
That is referred to as a kernel panic. OS X: About kernel panics
Regardless of the kernel panics, you will still need the install disc to repair and reinstall OS X if necessary.
And are these issues directly related to the crashes? (I have been running the computer connected to an external drive and monitor - for watching movies)
Could be part of the problem.

Similar Messages

How to proceed from Disk repair "invalid directory item count" "this disk needs to be repaired"?

I'm trying to repair the hard drive on a MacBook running Mac OS X 10.6.8. To be honest I'm surprised the machine has lasted so long. It's very sluggish at the moment.
When verifying the hard drive, I get these details:
Verifying volume “Macintosh HD”
Performing live verification.
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking extents overflow file.
Checking catalog file.
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking catalog hierarchy.
Invalid directory item count
(It should be 37 instead of 35)
Checking extended attributes file.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
The volume Macintosh HD was found corrupt and needs to be repaired.
"This disk needs to be repaired. Start up your computer with another disk (such as your Mac OS X installation disc), and then use Disk Utility to repair this disk."
How should I proceed from here? Is the only path to use a mac OS X installation disk (which I don't have, so would have to source and borrow)?
Many thanks

Get the disk and insert it in the optical drive, then restart holding down the C key. You will come to an install screen to pick language. Unless you want some other language click inter. Then before you go any further, look to the top of the screen for a drop down utilities menu. Go to disk utilities open an select your Internal hard drive use repair option in the menu and repair drive . You may have to do this more than once. If this will not repair you drive,you will need a third party repair tool such as disk warrior or a new drive.

Disk Utility: Invalid Directory Item Count

I have noticed a minor problem with my Mac Pro when restarting. Sometimes it will fail to restart correctly and simply displays the grey screen (but not the apple icon). Usually powering down the Mac Pro will get it to start up correctly. Not ideal, but manageable.
I ran Disk Utility earlier to check what may be causing this issue and was given the following after Verifying Disk:
Verifying volume “Macintosh HD”
Checking file systemPerforming live verification.
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking extents overflow file.
Checking catalog file.
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking catalog hierarchy.
Invalid directory item count
(It should be 33 instead of 32)
Checking extended attributes file.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
The volume Macintosh HD was found corrupt and needs to be repaired.
Error: This disk needs to be repaired using the Recovery HD. Restart your computer, holding down the Command key and the R key until you see the Apple logo. When the Mac OS X Utilities window appears, choose Disk Utility.
If I restart and launch Recovery HD will I lose any data or mess things up? The machine works perfectly fine once booted and I was none the wiser to this error until I ran disk utility. The timing is unfortunate as I have just ordered a replacement drive for Time Machine due to an unrelated external hard drive error, so I don't have a recent backup which is a bit unnerving.
I want to run Recovery HD but I'm worried its going to cause a problem on an otherwise fully operational machine. I don't want to create an issue unless there is one (especially when I dont have a secure backup for a few more days). I also have Disk Warrior which has been fantastic in the past, but I cannot use it on the Mackintosh HD as it wont allow rebuilding of the startup disc.
So my question is: Should I run recovery HD now or just wait until I have a secure backup just in case it screws up? Is it possible Recovery HD may "create" a problem for me on my machine which runs and operates perfectly (minus the restart problem).

I went into Recovery HD and ran Disk Utility. It verified and repaired the permissions without any data loss or problems. As a bonus the boot problem seems to have been recitifed.

Invalid directory item count

Hi all
I have a 2008 model iMac running Snow Leopard 10.6.4.
After installing the most recent security update this weekend, the machine rebooted and hung on start up (it was stuck on the circular activity indicator / gray screen for well over an hour). In the end I killed the power and restarted. The machine came up straight away.
I verified the disk using Disk Utility and it reported errors. So I rebooted into single user and ran fsck -fy, which fixed a whole bunch of stuff. Booted the machine and ran Disk Utility again, and it still reported errors!
Back into single user and fsck -fy the disk until it reports no changes twice in a row. Start the machine and run Disk Utility and again it reports a problem!
So now I am stuck in a loop:
- Boot in single user
- Run fsck -fy
- fsck reports that 'Invalid directory item count' error and corrects it
- Boot the machine
- Run Disk Utility, the 'Invalid directory item count' has returned
- Back to single user and it starts again
Can anyone advise on this? Do I need to worry about that message? It's the same error every time - and every time I fix it in single user and it's back by the time the machine boots. Do I just need to go out and buy DiskWarrior? I'd rather not - on the surface there's nothing wrong with the machine and I never would've known if I hadn't run Disk Utility after that hang.
Thanks in advance for any help

Thank you for the reply.
SMART validates as 'OK'.
I will try the hardware test. The OEM hard disk that came with this machine failed last year and the hardware test identified that before it finally died. However that had a lot of problems leading up to it - the machine would hang and was often very slow - checking Console showed a lot of I/O errors. Fortunately nothing like that is happening this time.
Hopefully this disk is OK. Thanks again.

HT201364 how do I remove items from startup disk to load OS X Mavericks?

I'm trying to load OS X Mavericks and I'm getting a message to remove items from startup disk. Can anyone tell me how to do that??

For information about the Other category in the Storage display, see this support article. If the Storage display seems to be inaccurate, try rebuilding the Spotlight index.
Empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. If you use iPhoto, empty its internal Trash first:
iPhoto ▹ Empty Trash
Do the same in other applications, such as Aperture, that have an internal Trash feature. Then reboot. That will temporarily free up some space.
According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB of available space on the startup volume (as shown in the Finder Info window) for normal operation. You also need enough space left over to allow for growth of the data. There is little or no performance advantage to having more available space than the minimum Apple recommends. Available storage space that you'll never use is wasted space.
When Time Machine backs up a portable Mac, some of the free space will be used to make local snapshots, which are backup copies of recently deleted files. The space occupied by local snapshots is reported as available by the Finder, and should be considered as such. In the Storage display of System Information, local snapshots are shown as Backups. The snapshots are automatically deleted when they expire or when free space falls below a certain level. You ordinarily don't need to, and should not, delete local snapshots yourself. If you followed bad advice to disable local snapshots by running a shell command, you may have ended up with a lot of data in the Other category. Reboot and it should go away.
See this support article for some simple ways to free up storage space.
You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) or GrandPerspective (GP) to explore the volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can also delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one. Note that ODS only works with OS X 10.8 or later. If you're running an older OS version, use GP.
Deleting files inside an iPhoto or Aperture library will corrupt the library. Any changes to a photo library must be made from within the application that created it. The same goes for Mail files.
Proceed further only if the problem isn't solved by the above steps.
ODS or GP can't see the whole filesystem when you run it just by double-clicking; it only sees files that you have permission to read. To see everything, you have to run it as root.
Back up all data now.
If you have more than one user account, make sure you're logged in as an administrator. The administrator account is the one that was created automatically when you first set up the computer.
Install the app you downloaded in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.
Triple-click anywhere in the corresponding line of text below on this page to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C:
sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
sudo /Applications/GrandPerspective.app/Contents/MacOS/GrandPerspective
Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
The application window will open, eventually showing all files in all folders, sorted by size. It may take a few minutes for the app to finish scanning.
I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means. When in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.
When you're done with the app, quit it and also quit Terminal.

I keep getting this message, I decided to delete whatever I can to free up some space. Then I get my few GBs I have left on the startup disk. Then after a day, I get the message again. I check the startup disk size and notice I have "zero kb" left. ??????

I keep getting this message, I decided to delete whatever I can to free up some space. Then I get my few GBs I have left on the startup disk. Then after a day, I get the message again. I check the startup disk size and notice I have "zero kb" left. ??????

Click your Apple menu icon top left in your screen. From the drop down menu click About This Mac > More Info > Storage
Make sure there's at least 15% free disk space.
Restart your Mac after freeing up disk space then check Stoage again.
Another way to view avialable space:
Control click the MacintoshHD icon on your Desktop then click Get Info.
In the Get Info panel you'll see: Available & Capacity
Again, make sure there's at least 15% free disk space.

[svn:bz-trunk] 20738: Check for bad directory-path argument to destination-include and throw an exception .

Revision: 20738
Revision: 20738
Author:   [email protected]
Date:     2011-03-09 13:22:36 -0800 (Wed, 09 Mar 2011)
Log Message:
Check for bad directory-path argument to destination-include and throw an exception.
Modified Paths:
    blazeds/trunk/modules/common/src/flex/messaging/config/LocalFileResolver.java
    blazeds/trunk/modules/common/src/flex/messaging/errors.properties
    blazeds/trunk/modules/core/src/flex/messaging/config/ServletResourceResolver.java

Hi Matthias,
Sorry, if this reply seems like a products plug (which it is), but this is really how we solve this software engineering challenge at JKI...
At JKI, we create VI Packages (which are basically installers for LabVIEW instrument drivers and toolkits) of our reusable code (using the package building capabilities of VIPM Professional). We keep a VI Package Configuration file (that includes a copy of the actual packages) in each of our project folders (and check it into source code control just as we do for all our project files). We also use VIPM Enterprise to distribute new VI Packages over the network.
Also, as others have mentioned, we use the JKI TortoiseSVN Tool to make it easy to use TortoiseSVN directly from LabVIEW.
Please feel free to contact JKI if you have any specific questions about these products.
Thanks,
-Jim

HT1349 when I start my macbook it shows STARTUP DISK FULL, and I cannot do anything else, it doesnt let me get into the computer to delete any programs,,,, What should I do ?

when I start my macbook it shows STARTUP DISK FULL, and I cannot do anything else, it doesnt let me get into the computer to delete any programs,,,, What should I do ?

Try starting in Safe mode which does not load all the software that is used in a regular boot. It also runs a disk check. After booting in safe mode transfer or trash stuff you don't really need so as to free up disk space. Be sure to hold the shift key down continously till a progress bar shows on the screen.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1564
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1455

Force local (Active Directory) Home directory on (non) startup disk

We're starting to experiment with binding our Macs into our corporate Active Directory domain and utilizing our network IDs and password to login (to the Mac). Our Macs are currently configured with three partitions; System (bootable), Restore (bootable) and Storage (empty) with local user accounts. We've worked on different setups utilizing the AD accounts either from the network home or pushed to the startup disk.
What I'd like to do is use the Storage partition as a landing spot for AD home directories that have been forced local. A new user would login with their network ID and password, their network home would be copied to the Storage partition and prefs inherited from the User Template.
Using the AD login should move us off of having to configure local user accounts (useful for freelance staff) and give our end users ONE account ID and password to remember.
Locating the home folder to a separate partition than the startup disk should allow us to perform OS updates (or installs) without worrying (too much) about wiping out the user's home folder. We also no longer have to reinforce directing our users to store files on the Storage partition instead of their Desktop, because the user's Desktop will actually be in the Storage partition.
If anyone has any advice or information to share, I'd greatly appreciate it... thanks!

Managed prefs - changed path of mobile home to second partition.

How do i delete items from startup disk

how do i delete items from startup disk

You should never, EVER let a conputer hard drive get completely full, EVER!
With Macs and OS X, you shouldn't let the hard drive get below 15 GBs or less of free data space.
If it does, it's time for some hard drive housecleaning.
Follow some of my tips for cleaning out, deleting and archiving data from your Mac's internal hard drive.
Have you emptied your iMac's Trash icon in the Dock?
If you use iPhoto, iPhoto has its own trash that needs to be emptied, also.
If you store images in other locations other than iPhoto, then you will have to weed through these to determine what to archive and what to delete.
If you use Apple Mail app, Apple Mail also has its own trash area that needs to be emptied, too!
Delete any old or no longer needed emails and/or archive to disc, flash drives or external hard drive, older emails you want to save.
Other things you can do to gain space.
Once you have around 15 GBs regained, do a search, download and install OmniDisk Sweeper.
This app will help you locate files that you can move/archive and/or delete from your system.
STAY AWAY FROM DELETING ANY FILES FROM OS X SYSTEM FOLDER!
Look through your Documents folder and delete any type of old useless type files like "Read Me" type files.
Again, archive to disc, flash drives, ext. hard drives or delete any old documents you no longer use or immediately need.
Look in your Applications folder, if you have applications you haven't used in a long time, if the app doesn't have a dedicated uninstaller, then you can simply drag it into the OS X Trash icon. IF the application has an uninstaller app, then use it to completely delete the app from your Mac.
Download an app called OnyX for your version of OS X.
When you install and launch it, let it do its initial automatic tests, then go to the cleaning and maintenance tabs and run the maintenance tabs that let OnyX clean out all web browser cache files, web browser histories, system cache files, delete old error log files.
Typically, iTunes and iPhoto libraries are the biggest users of HD space.
move these files/data off of your internal drive to the external hard drive and deleted off of the internal hard drive.
If you have any other large folders of personal data or projects, these should be archived or moved, also, to the optical discs, flash drives or external hard drive and then either archived to disc and/or deleted off your internal hard drive.
Good Luck!

Startup Disk Oddities and Other Things

Hi there, I'm having some issues with Boot Camp related items that I'm unable to solve myself. Hopefully someone here can help or point me in the right direction.
Current configuration:
I have a Mac Pro with 4 internal and 1 external hard drives. Disk 1 has my OSX partition on it. Disk 2 has Windows XP installed through Boot Camp, taking up the entirety of the other partitions. The other three drives do not contain bootable operating systems. The 1.5TB external drive is used as a Time Machine drive and contains backups of the other drives (WinXP excluded).
I have a wide variety of software available to use and am familiar with most all terms related to this issue.
Symptoms:
1) Windows partition does not show up as a viable boot disk in the OSX Startup Disks control panel
2) When using the Boot Camp Assist, I am never given the option to return my second disk (the NTFS one) to an OSX Partition. That, and create a second partition option is ALWAYS grayed out, my only option being to erase the whole disk and create a single partition for Windows. This will show up no matter what format the partition is currently (FAT32, NTFS or HFS+).
3) When holding down the Option key on startup, I see three available boot volumes. OSX, Windows and Windows. Booting to either the first or the third option gives me OSX or WinXP, respectively, but selecting the second returns an "Operating System Not Found" error on a black screen.
4) When in Windows XP, going into the Boot Camp control panel, I see 3 startup volumes. OSX on Disk 1, Windows on Disk 1, Windows on Disk 2.
As best as I can determine, something on my OSX volume is being recognized as having a valid Windows partition. I'd like to resolve this issue so I can go back to the "normal" way of doing things before other issues arise because I've ignored this for so long.
Thanks for any help and suggestions you may have,
Jackson
After thought: I am unable to boot into the Parted Magic live CD to inspect the partitions on my first disk. It hangs on "Waiting 10 seconds for devices." This as a troubleshooting utility is unavailable.

Since my last post, I repaired disk permissions, and ran CacheOutX, What Size, and MacJanitor. I now have 3 MB available but it goes back to zero when I launch iTunes.
Sep 10 10:59:22 admins-powerbook-g4-12 authexec: executing /System/Library/ScriptingAdditions/StandardAdditions.osax/Contents/MacOS/uid
Sep 10 10:59:22 admins-powerbook-g4-12 authexec: executing /System/Library/ScriptingAdditions/StandardAdditions.osax/Contents/MacOS/uid
Sep 10 10:59:22 admins-powerbook-g4-12 authexec: executing /System/Library/ScriptingAdditions/StandardAdditions.osax/Contents/MacOS/uid
Sep 10 10:59:23 admins-powerbook-g4-12 authexec: executing /System/Library/ScriptingAdditions/StandardAdditions.osax/Contents/MacOS/uid
Sep 10 10:59:23 admins-powerbook-g4-12 authexec: executing /System/Library/ScriptingAdditions/StandardAdditions.osax/Contents/MacOS/uid
Sep 10 10:59:23 admins-powerbook-g4-12 authexec: executing /System/Library/ScriptingAdditions/StandardAdditions.osax/Contents/MacOS/uid
Sep 10 10:59:23 admins-powerbook-g4-12 authexec: executing /System/Library/ScriptingAdditions/StandardAdditions.osax/Contents/MacOS/uid
Sep 10 10:59:23 admins-powerbook-g4-12 authexec: executing /System/Library/ScriptingAdditions/StandardAdditions.osax/Contents/MacOS/uid
2008-09-10 11:00:03.782 WhatSize[907] IDDLog will start logging to file /Users/admin/Library/Logs/WhatSize.log
2008-09-10 11:13:45.421 MacJanitor[953] Is Authorized==-60007
2008-09-10 11:13:45.644 MacJanitor[953] Find keychain returned -25300
2008-09-10 11:13:47.636 MacJanitor[953] Is Authorized==0
2008-09-10 11:13:47.637 MacJanitor[953] authenticateForExecutablePaths returned OK
2008-09-10 11:13:51.766 MacJanitor[953] Running task
Sep 10 11:13:51 admins-powerbook-g4-12 authexec: executing /Volumes/MacJanitor_1.3/MacJanitor.app/Contents/Resources/MacJanitorServer

MacBook Pro says "startup disk full" and that I have 58GB of photos, but folder appears empty

For the past couple of days, I've been getting the message that I'm unable to save/download something because the startup disk is full. I checked the storage and the main problem appears to be 58.7 GB of photos, even though I've deleted all photos I could find (including iPhoto). I checked all of the folders on Finder, only to find my picture one taking up most of the space, but when I tried to view what was inside it appeared empty, and it wouldn't let me move the folder to trash. Any help on how to delete the contents of the folder?
Thank you

just kidding i figured it out

Classic folder not found BUT it os9 appears in startup disk list and boots!

I installed my friends system from scratch it is an old imac G3 with latest firmware updates..
In the end the only way to get it installed the way they wanted was to install tiger and drag the system folder over from the old install
Now what happens when booted to OSX 10.4 "Classic" in the system preferences looks for a classic folder but cant find one.... yet if I go toe system preferences startup There are both the OS X starup and OS 9 Startup disk listed there and if selected OS 9.22 boots and runs fine.
It is listed under startup as Mac OS Z1 - 9.22 Machintosh HD
I have not run software update on Tiger yet so it is probably 10.4.3 or 4 maybe this would help ?
Any ideas why it wont see this as haveing Classic on the system ? It seems strange that Apple wont allow you to point to the correct folder when it exists and boots from it fine.
Interesting enough when I plugged in my external firewire drive (which is where i copied the OS 9.22 system folder across from) and run the system preferences and classic setup it looks and sees the external drive folder as ok to run for classic !
Naturally I have unmounted this as it is my drive and not my friends
thanks for your help

when I open
Classic Preferences, the system looks for eligible
System Folders and lists the ones it has found. On my
Tibook, there is normally only one, and that one is
selected by default. In order to deselect it, I would
have to connect my external drive, which contains (on
separate partitions) three other System Folders
suitable for use as Classic. I would then expect to
be able to choose manually from among the four
eligible candidates, even if one of them were
initially selected by default.
Are you saying that the Classic pane of Sys Prefs on
your computer fails to list any System Folder at all,
even though the one that boots your computer into OS
9.2.2 is present and ready for duty? If so, that is
strange indeed.
mine works exactly the same as your then.
and yes you are also right that it fails to list any system folder as all

A private var folder is taking up all of my startup disk space and I can't delete it.

HI,
My startup disk usage jumped to full quite unexpectedly. On running 'daisy disk' I can see that most of the space has been taken up with files marked as:
Disks and folders/macintosh hd/private/var/vm followed by a whole lot of 'swap file' extensions (34.3 GB in total)
and
folders/macintosh hd/private/var/db
What are these large files, and how do I delete them? Daisy disk says that they are required by OsX- but they weren't there before-
Alison

Shutdown the computer. Wait 30 seconds then restart. See if anything has changed. The swap files should be deleted. The main reason you may have such large swap is because you are running out of memory from trying to run to many applications concurrently.
Do not do anything with the /private/var/db file. The system needs that file.
There are many things that can take up space on a hard drive:
Freeing Up Space on The Hard Drive
1. See Lion/Mountain Lion/Mavericks' Storage Display.
2. You can remove data from your Home folder except for the /Home/Library/ folder.
3. Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on freeing up space on your hard drive.
4. Also see Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk.
5. See Where did my Disk Space go?.
6. See The Storage Display.
You must Empty the Trash in order to recover the space they occupied on the hard drive.
You should consider replacing the drive with a larger one. Check out OWC for drives, tutorials, and toolkits.
Try using OmniDiskSweeper 1.8 or GrandPerspective to search your drive for large files and where they are located.

Startup disk full and mac will not start up, startup disk full and mac will not start up

my startup disk is full, and now my macboom air will not startup

I finally figured out how to start up the macbook in "safe' mode wchich allowed me to boot up and delete a bunch of extra files, then install an external drive to transfer everything over. Once i set up that drive, it works like a champ. kinda annoying thta you have to pay the kind of money that apple wants for these things just to go out and have to spend more on an external...but whatever. anyway, to start in safe mode follow this link...(sorry, i tried to cpoy and paste, but i couldnt with this stupid reply program...
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1445
hope this helps.

Solution for invalid directory item count, startup disk corruption and regular crashes

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