[Banghazi]

I've in the past tried Tiger on my G3 iBook, and it ran so slowly it wasn't worthing using.

Experimenting with the OSX intaller, I decided to format the disk as a UNIX File-System instead of the default "MacOS Journaled" (I had no idea what this meant). I start it up, and Tiger cooks.

Through the dock I could click Safari, iTunes, Mail, and Quicktime in quick succession, and they would all load in just a few bounces. I was elated. That is, until I restarted for the first time. (After installing softwarware updates.)
It took forever, (I don't remember if it hung on the shut down or start-up), so I forced it to shut down.

I started it up, and seemingly everything is ok. And then I see this strange "lost+found" folder in my hard drive. I had no I idea what it meant, but I got a hunch it was because of that UNIX File-System business.



A little research explained it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journaling_file_system
So my forced shut-down caused files to be damaged/lost, and sure enough, things started acting up: Stuffit Installer "file not found error", Adium bounces and never starts up.. and eventually general sluggishness, the type of which I have never seen before. It was like Karo syrup.

I have since then tried formatting as UNIX FS a few more times, and I have not been able to do a normal restart - it just hangs - whether it was immediately after installation, or after repairing permissions or installing restart-required software updates.

I am wondering if there is anyone out there who might know anything about this; how I can put the lost+found files back in the right places or how I can prevent the enigmatic crashes/hangs when restarting. Any other input would be much appreciated.

thank you.
-banghazi

[Banghazi]

Again, any input is helpful.

[whgoodman]

The files in the lost+found directory are placed there because the FSCK that they system runs on damaged file systems did not know what to do with them. Once the file makes it into lost+found there isn't much you can do other than try to manually move the files back to the proper name/location. Unless you can guarantee that the file is complete [via md5 checksum or some other visual inspection] it would not be a good idea to move system files back from lost+found.

[Tomchu]

HFS+ is journaled, while UFS isn't. While a journaled file system won't ensure that you don't suffer any data loss with an improper shutdown, it will almost always guarantee an intact file system. Those files you see are chunks of incomplete or damaged files that FSCK managed to rescue due to the improper shutdown.

UFS with Soft Updates (which OS X doesn't support, FreeBSD does) would alleviate that in a similar way to a journal.

[Chuckit]

UFS doesn't make things faster, and while it breaks many applications, it shouldn't make your system crash more. It sounds like you've got deeper problems than file system choice — maybe a dying hard disk.

[Rainy Day]

On some of the older G3’s, if it hangs on system startup, you need to manually delete the files :

  /System/Library/Extensions.kextcache
  /System/Library/Extensions.mkext

You can delete these files from OS-9

Don’t use UFS, use HFS+ Journaled

[Banghazi]

Interesting. Much thanks.