Hi all

I've been doing clean-ups of my MacBook and 500 GB LaCie Minihub 
back-up HD (which I have plugged in and running all the time as a 
Firewire and USB hub).

This was triggered by my Logitech mouse movement (driven by (OS X, 
NOT Logitech software) becoming flakey and my keyboard (MS Natural 
driven by the MS driver) response becoming odd -- delays and stuff in 
things appearing on-screen, particularly in Eudora in which I am 
typing now.

Today -- at last -- I'm back to a mouse that runs, instead of skips, 
and a keyboard that inputs instantly.

All thanks, I believe, to Cocktail.app -- a clean-up app which cost a 
couple of bucks (it isn't expensive), has previously worked when the 
freebie clean-up app wouldn't and did the job again this time.

In the course of cleaning stuff up, I noticed a folder on the LaCie 
named "lost+found". It came off an earlier System HD which I copied 
more or less in toto to the b/u HD when I was switching machines. Or 
rather, it was in the folder of stuff from that HD, so I presume it 
came from that HD. I don't know how the folder got its name -- I 
can't remember naming it.

It was 35 GB, the folders inside it were named things like 
"dir_2996451" and that particular folder contained four .plist items 
and one "WebpageIcons.db". Others contained many, many .plist items, 
some contained applications, at least one contained a heap of fonts.

When I dumped lost+found into the trash, it got into counting tens of 
thousands of items. Then it said it couldn't delete the numbered 
folders inside it because they were in use. The message which came 
up: "The operation can't be completed because dir_2996451 is in use". 
And I had to click stop or continue for each folder. Yeah, right, 
anything you say Mr Mac!

Oh, and there were "inode" things too.

Sharing & Permissions told me I could only read thee items or I 
wasn't mentioned at all. When I unlocked them and added my current 
self as "Read & Write" it allowed me to delete some files, but not 
some other files and not the folders themselves. However, it was 
going to take me days to work through all those files and even then, 
it obviously wasn't a complete solution.

I repaired the disks with Disk Utility several times, I tried 
deleting the caches and searching for corrupted preferences with 
Cocktail.app. Still the flakey mouse and keyboard actions and the 
undeletable files and folders persisted.

Finally, I found a command I hadn't previously noticed in 
Cocktail.app. Under "System > Misc" there is "Force empty of trash on 
(... selectable ...) hard disk". Ha!!! Dumped the 'lost+found' folder 
into the trash and forced emptying. Gone at last (it took a while). 
(I just noticed -- Cocktail.app also has a command "Delete locked 
files" under "Files > Locked".)

Did the disk repair thing on the LaCie, it deleted the now "orphaned" 
directory items, and ...

Hey, no more flakey mouse, no more flakey keyboard.

I'm wrapped. Can't recommend Cocktail.app highly enough.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Publisher, Editor, Business Writer
The Worsley Press

FREE Bonus book offer. Get "How to make great ads for (sm)all 
business"  FREE when you buy "Type & Layout: Are you communicating or 
just making pretty shapes?" or "How to Start and Produce a Magazine 
or Newsletter". Amazon or www.worsleypress.com