I attempted to run fsck -y this evening and couldn't. The terminal (or as David Pogue says in The Missing Manual, Mac OSX Panther edition, console) gives this message when I attempt to run fsck -y (file system check):
fsck_hfs: Volume is journaled. No checking performed. Fsck_hfs: use the -f option to force checking. So not knowing what all this means I looked up fsck in the index in the missing manual. Briefly, Mac osx keeps a journal of everything you do in case of a freeze, improper shut down, or, Steve Jobs forbid, a crash. If such occurs then Mac oSX can repair itself. Because of this feature in panther regular fsck -y doesn't work. But fsck -f does. Although it may return phantom error messages. Pogue says Repair Permissions in the disk utility program is simply a front end for fsck and you really shouldn't have to use fsck.... I am not sure how accurately I have relayed this information. I leave it to the UNIX aficionados among us to illuninatge, expand, expound and show me/us the error of our/my ways. Note to Jerry and Bill this might be a useful sidebar for the January LCS meeting. Harry | The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will | be January 27. The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>. | This list's page is <http://erdos.math.louisville.edu/macgroup>.
