In order to back up my computer with Dropbox, my Desktop, Documents, Development, etc… folders are stored directly in my Dropbox folder (because Dropbox doesn't like symbolic links) and I replaced the original folders in my home directory with hard links.
When I updated to High Sierra, some of the original folders and links were maintained (such as the one to my Downloads folder), but others weren't — Finder is treating the folders in Dropbox as broken aliases and bash treats them as files owned by root. The actual files are still on the system somewhere (my 1TB SSD thinks it only has 55GB free space) and I'd like to restore them if possible.
The files are still safe in the cloud, but if I restored them elsewhere to this drive, I wouldn't have enough disk space left, so at the very least I would like to recover the hundreds of GB of space that the folders used to occupy.
How can I access + restore the original folders on the drive?
Contents of /Users/jceipek/Dropbox/jc_home/ (the files owned by root used to be directories):
drwxr-xr-x@ 17 jceipek staff 544 Apr 18 01:03 .
drwx------@ 90 jceipek staff 2880 Aug 8 09:37 ..
-rw-r--r--@ 1 jceipek staff 26628 Sep 26 07:16 .DS_Store
drwxr-xr-x@ 151 jceipek staff 4832 Aug 16 19:58 Application Support
-r--r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 3 2014 Artwork
-r--r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 3 2014 Calibre Library
-r--r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 3 2014 Desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 jceipek staff 825 Apr 18 00:47 Desktop\ParaspaceIcon.mtl
-rw-r--r-- 1 jceipek staff 475 Apr 18 01:03 Desktop\ParaspaceIcon2.mtl
-r--r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 3 2014 Development
drwx------@ 47 jceipek staff 1504 Mar 16 2017 Documents
drwx------@ 1263 jceipek staff 40416 Sep 25 21:25 Downloads
-r--r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 3 2014 EXPO
-r--r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 3 2014 Movies
-r--r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 3 2014 Music
-r--r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 3 2014 Pictures
-r--r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 3 2014 Reading
Some of the links in my home folder:
lrwxr-xr-x 1 jceipek staff 38 Mar 16 2017 Desktop -> /Users/jceipek/Dropbox/jc_home/Desktop
lrwxr-xr-x 1 jceipek staff 42 Mar 16 2017 Development -> /Users/jceipek/Dropbox/jc_home/Development
lrwxr-xr-x 1 jceipek staff 40 Mar 16 2017 Documents -> /Users/jceipek/Dropbox/jc_home/Documents
lrwxr-xr-x 1 jceipek staff 40 Mar 16 2017 Downloads -> /Users/jceipek/Dropbox/jc_home/Downloads
I've tried running Disk Utility from internet recovery mode, which seems to complete fine until it gets to "Verifying allocated space" and reports:
error: Underallocation Detected on Main device: (80989975+1) bitmap address
(84980494)
Space Verification failed.
The volume /dev/rdisk2s1 could not be verified completely.
File system check exit code is 0.
Restoring the original state found as mounted.
Operation successful.
Running sudo du -xhd 1 in the root directory:
4.0K ./.MobileBackups
0B ./.HFS+ Private Directory Data
1.0K ./home
19G ./usr
2.2G ./.Spotlight-V100
1.0K ./net
0B ./.PKInstallSandboxManager-SystemSoftware
2.6M ./bin
0B ./Network
1.1M ./sbin
17G ./Library
0B ./.Trashes
11G ./System
15M ./.fseventsd
du: ./private/var/db/ConfigurationProfiles/Store: Operation not permitted
du: ./private/var/folders/zc/j_737dh967l96ss406b94dtm0000gn/0/SafariFamily: Operation not permitted
du: ./private/var/folders/zc/j_737dh967l96ss406b94dtm0000gn/0/com.apple.LaunchServices.dv: Operation not permitted
du: ./private/var/folders/zc/j_737dh967l96ss406b94dtm0000gn/0/com.apple.nsurlsessiond: Operation not permitted
du: ./private/var/folders/zc/j_737dh967l96ss406b94dtm0000gn/0/com.apple.routined: Operation not permitted
du: ./private/var/folders/pz/fb3ncjzj3y37gksf08f1g0t80000gp/0/com.apple.LaunchServices.dv: Operation not permitted
du: ./private/var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n00000y800007k/0/com.apple.nsurlsessiond: Operation not permitted
5.0G ./private
682M ./.DocumentRevisions-V100
0B ./.vol
292G ./Users
51G ./Applications
175M ./opt
8.0K ./dev
0B ./lost+found
8.9M ./Volumes
0B ./cores
397G .
Best Answer
I had hard links and found my files scattered in the root (/) under a folder called
"/.HFS+ Private Directory Data?"