Folders turning into Unix Executable files?

[utn]

My friend's Mac has done something quite strange and im pretty stumped on how to fix it. As the title of the post says he had a folder that turned into a Unix Executable file suddenly. The file now is labeled as zero kb too. Has anyone had this happen to them? Are there any termial commands I can do to change it back or what? I also attached a picture of the files information.

Thanks,
Scott

 

[boyfarrell]

Hi,

You could try repairing permission using Disk Utility?

What are the permission of the folder set to (like the revel triangle under the permissions header in the the information window)?

Dan

 

[artov]

My friend's Mac has done something quite strange and im pretty stumped on how to fix it. As the title of the post says he had a folder that turned into a Unix Executable file suddenly. The file now is labeled as zero kb too.
Thanks,
Scott

When in Unix the filesystem looses files, you should run fsck. And in
your friend's case files are lost, since the folder has turned to zero size.
You could try to run fsck_hfs, but I guess it would be better to run
Disk Utility, select the disk and run Verify Disk. I don't know if Verify
Disk works same as fsck, but at least fsck makes a directory named
lost+found, where it will put all the lost files. Since the directory is lost,
their name will be something generic like #34324.

 

[zo219]

I'm surprised not to see more of this problem ... and think Xray should come with every Mac. What your suddenly Unix-executable file has done is lost it's Creator, Type and perhaps extension metadata ... happens all the time. So these things need to be added back, and I've used Xray for so long. Find it at macupdate.com or wwwbrockerhoff.net, it's not free but will repay you many times over.