Steps to Resolve Directory Corruption in Mac OS X

There are a number of variables that can cause damage to the data stored on your Mac hard drive. This damage can become rampant if not fixed at the right time. Corruption can creep into your system and affect three major areas- Mac OS X startup disk directory, permissions on systems files and folders, and cache files (system, application, or user-specific). The potential factors behind all forms of Mac hard drive corruption include system crashes, application malfunctions, power outages, defective hard drives, and various application installers that damage system-related permissions.

Directory corruption and bad sectors on your hard drive are the main reasons responsible for data loss. Directory corruption can be fixed using Apple’s Disk Utility. Some typical cases of directory corruption may cause corruption in your data files, which cannot be resolved either using any third-party Disk Utility or the Apple’s Disk Utility. Additionally, if your hard drive develops bad sectors, there is less possibility of data retrieval from those areas of the drive. In such cases, the best solution to avert data loss is to use backups. You should devise a comprehensive backup and recovery plan to salvage your precious data in these critical situations.

The Disk Utility can be used to fix directory corruption on your startup hard disk. The detailed procedure to run Disk Utility is explained below:

• Insert Mac OS X Install disc into your system and restart your Mac.
• On the Installer window, go to ‘Utilities’ and select ‘Disk Utility’ (on Mac OS X 10.4 or later). The Disk Utility window will appear on your screen.
• You will see a list of hard drives and volumes displayed in the left pane of the window. Select the volume from this list that represents your OS X startup disk.
• After selecting the volume, click on the ‘First Aid’ tab.
• Next, click on the ‘Repair Disk’ button on this tab. As the Repair Disk process is carried out, carefully examine the messages reported by Disk Utility.
• If you receive any of the following messages, then Disk Utility has successfully repaired the disk.

‘No repairs were necessary’
Or
‘The volume has been repaired’

• If you see one of these messages on the screen, then Disk Utility has failed to repair the disk.

‘The volume Macintosh HD needs to be repaired’
Or
‘Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit’

If Disk Utility fails to repair your disk, it may be a different type of directory corruption. In such cases, you can try running ‘fsck’ in single-user mode or boot your Mac from a different volume prior to verifying.