# Invalid key length on External Firewire disk



## sososowhat (Mar 25, 2003)

My nice 120G buslink drive worked for about 10 days just fine; then the system hung while I was importing video from my digicam.  I think what might have happened was the system went to sleep while doing a long import.  At any rate, I came back & it was hung.  I'm running 10.2.4; nearly new 1Ghz Mac with 1.75G RAM.

I rebooted, and the drive I was writing to is now unmountable.  Disk utility says it needs repairs, thinks it does the repairs, but they aren't "done" - it still needs the same repair.

Repairing disk "114 GB Disk".
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Invalid key length
Repair completed.
Repairing disk "114 GB Disk".
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Invalid key length
Repair completed.

Ideas?

? Is there a better disk utility - preferably free since I'd rather not spend $$ on something that might not work?  Is there any way to get at it through Unix directly maybe without mounting the disk?


----------



## jaguarfox13 (Mar 25, 2003)

> _Originally posted by sososowhat _
> Is there any way to get at it through Unix directly maybe without mounting the disk? [/B]



fsck is the standard unix file directory repair tool. Its actually the same Disk Utility does. but maybe its worth a try.

go here for more information and how to do it:

http://www.osxfaq.com/Tutorials/fsck/index.ws


----------



## sososowhat (Mar 25, 2003)

To run fsck i need to know the pathname.  I'm assuming that the disk only maps to a /dev file if it's mounted, which is what I can't do.  On the other hand, the system clearly can "see" it through disk utility.  

Do you know what the Unix pathname of the unmounted but firewire-visible disk might be?


----------



## jaguarfox13 (Mar 25, 2003)

read the tutorial i mentioned!
its explained there!


----------

