lost+found entries.... Can I delete the contents ?

[MARREEL Chris_1]

I have a very old HP-UX system 9000/385 running HP-UX 8.00.
In the /lost+found-directory I have a lot of 'directory' entries, and if I do a 'cd' into these directory's I end up each time on the / .
How can I remove these 'directory'-entries in the /lost+found ? Can I simply delete them or will it do a recursive delete starting from the / and erasing everything on the system ?

info taken from the system:

cad350-1:/# pwd
/

cad350-1:/# cd /lost+found

cad350-1:/lost+found# ll
total 30
drwxrwxr-x 3 mvsr se 2048 Dec 15 2000 #012534
drwxrwxr-x 3 mvsr se 2048 Dec 15 2000 #026767
drwxrwxr-x 3 mvsr se 1024 Dec 15 2000 #073804
drwxrwxr-x 3 mvsr se 1024 Dec 13 1994 #078080
drwxrwxr-x 3 mvsr se 1024 Dec 13 1994 #080039
drwxrwxr-x 3 mvsr se 1024 Dec 13 1994 #084122
drwxrwxr-x 3 mvsr se 1024 Dec 13 1994 #090222
drwxrwxr-x 2 mvsr se 1024 Dec 15 2000 #127667
drwxrwxr-x 2 mvsr se 1024 Jul 11 1994 #127668
drwxrwxr-x 2 mvsr se 1024 Dec 15 2000 #127672
drwxrwxr-x 3 mvsr se 1024 Dec 15 2000 #194810
drwxrwxr-x 3 mvsr se 1024 Dec 15 2000 #200857
drwxrwxr-x 3 mvsr se 1024 Dec 15 2000 #207096

cad350-1:/lost+found# cd #194810

cad350-1:/# pwd
/

cad350-1:/#



All help is apreciated,
Chris MARREEL

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Chris:

lost+found entries are present from 'fsck' repairs and are intended to be examined by you and used to recover data if/as necessary. If they are old, and contain nothing useful, remove them. 'cd' into the directory and 'rm' them, but leave the 'lost+found' directories themselves.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Victor BERRIDGE]

Hi,
If you have nothing to be saved from the contents of your lost+found directory then you can remove all, the fastest way would be rm -rf lost+found , but then you would have to recreate it by typing mklost+found in order to recreate the slots for fsck purpose...

All the best

Victor

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Chris:

Sorry, I didn't read well enough to see your problem -- the "#" character. Once in the /lost+found directory, do:

# cd \#012534
# rm -i *

or, if you want, do:

# rm -ir /lost+found

This will prompt you to delete the files and directories recursively and allow you to respond "n" as necessary.

Regards!

...JRF...

[MANOJ SRIVASTAVA]

Hi Chris

When fsck finds inconsistencies in the checkup these files get generated , ie if fsck finds inconsitencies in inodes or blocks it renames the files . Check whether the files are important or not , or incase you ahve to delete all of them then may be you can just delete the directory as a whole -i option will ask you for response in case there are many file sna subdirectories , and then recreate an empty lost + found direcotry , so that next time when fsck run it should be able to recover .
Please donot forget to recreate an empty directory under that mount point with the orignal owners ( i think root )

Manoj Srivastava

[Christopher Caldwell]

Based on the age of the files in lost+found, you can safely delete them.

Good sys-admin practice says be careful with recursive removes by providing fully qualified path names.

[MARREEL Chris_1]

I think you all haven't read my question well, or I haven't made it clear enough ...

My problem is that the entries in the lost+found-directory are actualy directory's who are hard-linked to the / (the root volume).
If I want to delete those entries, it will ask for all the files on my root volume...

Isn't there a way to 'unlink' those hard-linked directory-entries ?

Greetings,
Chris MARREEL

[Clemens van Everdingen]

Hi,

Try to do this :

go to the lost+found dir and do this:

cd '#12345'
ll

C.

[Emiel van Grinsven]

Hi,

try to cd to the directory like this:

cd '#1234' (use the ')

or like this:

cd /direct/\#1234

Becouse of the # the shell interpets your command to be a #> cd [return]

Now see if you can enter the directory and empty them

Good luck,

Emiel

[melvyn burnard]

Well first thing to do is make a GOOD backup!
Then take a reference file/link and check where it links to in /, then if it is not a critical one, try removing the entry in lost+found.

When fsck does it's job, the files it moves into lost+found get renamed with a preceding # and then their inode number gets appended.

If you DO wish to just rm -rf the lost+found directory, before doing so check to see if you have the mklost+found command available, as this will recreate the lost+found entry in your file system in the correct manner. As this is such an ancient OS I cannot remember if it had the command or not.

[Steven Sim Kok Leong]

Hi,

If they are hard-linked files, then removing the link in lost+found directory will not affect the other link.

Hope this helps. Regards.

Steven Sim Kok Leong

[Clemens van Everdingen]

Chris,

We have tested the solution which I gave and Emiel as well.

It has to do with the # before teh directory name.

It works fine if you use this solution from Emiel and me.

C.

[U.SivaKumar_2]

hi ,
yon can remove that files , since they are
hard links.

regards,
U.SivaKumar

[Emiel van Grinsven]

I'll explain a bit more thorough.

Those directories starting with # are not links. They can be but that's not determined by your [cd] command.
Becouse you didn't put a [\] infront of the [#] the shell interpets your command different. it only sees [cd] which will put you back in your home directory. (for root that can be /).
Take a closer look at what James already said and Clemens and I, cd /lost+found/\#1234
It's the \ that makes it work and will get you in the #1234 directory.
Or do: cd /lost+found
cd '#1234'
It will do the same.
the rest of the replies already state you can throw away the contents and how to treat this.

Good luck and let me know if you succeed.

Grt, Emiel

[MARREEL Chris_1]

Emiel,

Thanks for your explanation, I can 'cd' into that directory, and I notice it is empty :

# cd /lost+found

cad350-1:/lost+found# cd \#012534

cad350-1:/lost+found/#012534# ll
total 0

cad350-1:/lost+found/#012534#

but when I try to delete it, it can't be delete :



cad350-1:/# rm -r /lost+found/\#012534
rm: directory /lost+found/#012534 not removed. Directory not empty

cad350-1:/# cd /lost+found

cad350-1:/lost+found# rm -r '#012534'
rm: directory #012534 not removed. Directory not empty

cad350-1:/lost+found#


I think I will leave it there, but it prevents me from taking a good backup, so this is again not a good solution...

Regards,
Chris MARREEL

[Clemens van Everdingen]

Hi,

Use rmdir '#12345' to remove the directory as it is no file rm will not work.

C.

[MARREEL Chris_1]

I have already tryed with the 'rmdir'-command instead of the 'rm -r'-command. The same problem there :

cad350-1:/lost+found# pwd
/lost+found

cad350-1:/lost+found# rmdir '#012534'
rmdir: #012534: Directory not empty

cad350-1:/lost+found# rmdir \#012534
rmdir: #012534: Directory not empty

cad350-1:/lost+found#


I have even tryed to rename the directory, this succeeds, but then again I can't delete the directory...

Regards,
Chris MARREEL

[Emiel van Grinsven]

Chris,

Maybe there are files starting with . in that dir.
Check with ls -la for these files. (they don't show up with ll)
Otherwise you can probably delete the directory like this.
rm -rfi '#1234'
the f is for force, the i so that it asks you if you are sure, the r for directories.

make sure you are not in that directory at the time you do an rm but in the lost+found directory.

Good luck, E.

[melvyn burnard]

As far as a good backup is concerened, use fbackup and exclude the lost+found directory with -e option.