I have a Mac G4, with OS 9.0.4 with 128 mb of memory, 20 gigs of HD
with approx 1.5 gigs free.

When I run Norton's Disk Doctor it shows the following message: "Check
Catalog Tree. A major error was found in the Catalog B-tree. Node 255,
Record 4. DVAEAE4.TMP has an incorrect extent length (10,7,42). Repair
attempt failed."   It has a size of 7 + gigabytes!  Is this something
I can trash? and if so what is the worse that can happen?  Any other
explanatory information will be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Steve

---

Request for Question Clarification by googleexpert-ga on 14 Dec 2003 12:11 PST

Hi ifiamnotiwhowillbe-ga,
I have a couple of questions:

Where is "DVAEAE4.TMP" located in?
Have you run Apple's Disk First Aid?
Did you run Speed Disk before running Disk Doctor?

Thanks.
-googleexpert

---

Clarification of Question by ifiamnotiwhowillbe-ga on 19 Dec 2003 13:13 PST

googleexpert-ga

Have you given up on this question?  I haven't heard from you since 12/14.
Thanks
Steve

---

Request for Question Clarification by googleexpert-ga on 19 Dec 2003 15:14 PST

Sorry ifiamnotiwhowillbe-ga,
when you said:
"dooder0001
Thanks for the info, I appreciate it.  Is there some way that I
cansend you some money through google?
Steve"

I thought dooder0001's comments answered your question.

About deleting the temp file, I would find out what program requires a
Cache like a Web Browser.
If you download many files with Internet Explorer, for example, a file
"Download Cache" can grow to a large size(500MB+).

This is just a hunch, but are you using a Digital Video Editor like
iMovie or Final Cut Pro?
I ask because it seems like DVAEAE4.TMP stands for Digital_VideoAEAE4.TMP

---

Clarification of Question by ifiamnotiwhowillbe-ga on 22 Dec 2003 05:42 PST

I do not use a digital video editor though do a fair amount of
downloads from the Web on occasion.  Is there some way that I can open
up the file to see what is in it?  The fact that it is in an old
inactive trash can forbodes well I as everything still seems to work
ok.....is that correct?   I just can force myself to put it in the
regular trash and empty.
Thanks for the help so far.
Steve

---

Request for Question Clarification by googleexpert-ga on 22 Dec 2003 14:00 PST

You can open the file using BBEdit, although at 7+ GB, I imagine it
would take a while.

A Demo of BBEdit 6.5 is available at the following page:
http://allmacintosh.xs4all.nl/preview/203925.html

Please let me know if that answers your question.

Thank you.
-googleexpert

---

Clarification of Question by ifiamnotiwhowillbe-ga on 29 Dec 2003 14:41 PST

No, I do not think that the question has been answered.  The only way,
I believe, that it is possible to see if it does any harm is to
actually do it. I did try to throw away the file in question, but have
not been able to, even though I hold down the option button at the
same time. Any suggestions?
Steve

---

Request for Question Clarification by googleexpert-ga on 29 Dec 2003 17:17 PST

It sounds like some program is using that file.
If you want to remove the file, restart Mac OS 9.0.4 without any
extensions (Hold Shift until the Finder Logo appears or until the
extensions[icons at the bottom] appear)

I'll let the google reps answer the main question, but you say you
have a 20GB drive with 1.5GB free. Please, please, PLEASE free up more
space. In OS 9, if 17/20 or more of your disk is full, you risk
damaging your drive. OS 10 handles the filesystem a bit better, so in
10 this fraction is more like 9/10. Here's what happens, in detail:

There are files on your disk that keep track of where files and free
space are on your disk, and also keep track of basic info for all your
files, such as name, type, and modification date. One of these files
is called the Extents Overflow File, and keeps track of the locations
of fragments of files. For every fragment of the extents overflow file
itself, it needs to keep track of that fragment. Thus, if the extents
overflow file is allowed to fragment, it would fill up by keeping
track of itself. Therefore, the system will only let it occupy large
contigious blocks of space on your disk. If there are no such blocks
available and it needs to expand, it will write over itself. This is
called an overlap. Norton will call it something like an Extents File
Overlap. This results in the computer no longer being able to find
where pieces of files are, and the affected files will be rendered
useless. (You can still open them in a text editor and extract text
from the good portions of them.) Usually, only a couple files are
affected in an overlap, but your disk is awful full, so be careful.
Norton's "fix" for this problem is to wrinkle out the overlap, but the
lost files can't be recovered (this isn't Norton's fault).

googleexpert:  
1-the file was orginally located in a folder named temporary (which I
could not find anywhere - though you must remember I didn't know where
to look behind the system).  When I found it with Sherlock, I dragged
it to the desk top, and then I dragged it to an old inactive trash can
where it now resides as a file that shows a size of 7,134.854 GB.
2- No I hadn't run it, but now I have it since reading your question -
it returned the following message -"problem: Invalid extent
entry,1625082,255      Test done. Problems were found , but Disk first
Aid cannot repair them" -
#3- No I didn't run speed disk before I ran disk doctor.  Should have I?
Steve

dooder0001
Thanks for the info, I appreciate it.  Is there some way that I
cansend you some money through google?
Steve

I don't work for google, I didn't answer your original question, and
I'm not here for the money, so no way can you send me anything. :]

One more comment, about disk utilities: Disk First Aid is reliable and
handy, but only fixes basic problems. It can't fix serious problems
like overlaps (or whatever it reported, which sounded similar to what
I described). Norton Disk Doctor and DiskWarrior (and perhaps TechTool
Pro) can "fix" this problem (but can't recover overlapped files, as I
stated earlier).

Norton Speed Disk is a utility for defragmenting, or organizing
information contigiously on, a disk. It is not made for repairing a
disk. It is smart enough to check for basic disk problems before
running, but if it misses something and it defragments your disk when
your disk has a problem, the problem will be 1000X worse after. This
is because it constantly moves files around, refragments them, and
ultimately defragments them, meaning it writes, reads, and completely
rearranges the special files on your disk that keep track of your
other files. In addition, it has another feature that optimizes these
special files. If one of these files has a problem, Speed Disk will
probably interpret the problem badly, and do something erroneous, such
as move files on top of each other, because it can't figure out where
your files are. Also, it may choke while optimizing the special files,
because it isn't suited for optimizing nonsensical information. In
this way, your entire directory could get scrambled.

Thus, in order to fix your disk, and before you run Speed Disk, you
should run a complete disk utility like Norton, DiskWarrior, or
TechTool (there are more as well, but these are the most common ones).
G'luck.

ifiamnotiwhowillbe,

The best advice i can give is to try Norton again, several times. Then
try Apple's Disk First Aid.
  
If they fix it, great! If not, being that it is a temporary file, it
may not hurt anything. It may, however stop your computer from running
(5-10%).
  
If it were me, I would try to fix it, then I would throw it away. I
may also attempt to install a clean system while the Mac is running,
just to be sure. With a clean system, you can always go back to the
one you were using.