Re: Getting rid of invalid filename

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

Simon Williams wrote:

>Michael J. Mahon <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote:
>
>> But you should run Mr. Fixit as soon as possible on that volume,
>> since whatever changed that file name could change _anything_,
>> and that could make the volume inconsistent.
>
>Yes, I thought of that (and patted myself on the back for being so
>clever) 
>I'm kind of curious as to what actually happened... As far as I can
>tell, the file was generated spontaneously. Originally I thought a
>".filename" file might have worked its way over from OSX via AppleTalk,
>but then it occured to me that GS/OS would not be able to copy a file
>with an invalid name, so that seems unlikely.

That's right--GSOS will enforce the file naming conventions.

When a filename is "generated spontaneously", it is usually the
result of a random write to a disk buffer, a disk read error, or a
memory error (which could be the result of bad contacts, noise,
cosmic rays, etc., etc.).

The bad news is that whatever changed the filename can (and
perhaps did) change other things as well, which makes the data
and the metadata (directories, file structures, and bitmaps) suspect
as well.  That's why I recommended running Mr. Fixit soon (I must
admit that I had momentarily forgotten that Mr. Fixit is what recovers
the bit map after the "special delete" is done in Cat Doctor).

I generally regard a scrambled file name as a relatively benign
symptom of random damage to disk data, which could be very
problematic.  I would immediately take steps to clean up any
intermittent problems--slot connectors, drive connectors, etc.--
and run Mr. Fixit periodically for the next few weeks to restore
my confidence in the system's correct operation.

Since you've already run it, if you didn't find any other errors
besides the unallocated blocks (that used to be allocated to the
specially deleted file) being marked in use, then you may have
dodged a bullet.  ;-)

Similar relatively benign damage is corruption of file creation
or modification date/time stamps.  Imagine how much fun it
is when a disk pointer or the bitmap is corrupted...

-michael

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