Macos – Why has the Mac been running fsck_hfs for two days now

filesystemsfsckhfs+macostime-machine

I first noticed that fsck_hfs was running, taking up 50-75% of a CPU, yesterday. It continues to run today.

Running ps -ax shows that it is doing /sbin/fsck_hfs -f -n -x -E /dev/disk3. Only problem: I don’t think I have a /dev/disk3.

  1. Why is it running?
  2. Will it ever finish?
  • Can I kill it?
  1. What is /dev/disk3? Could it be my Time Machine volume, which is not mounted at the moment?

System Info: MacBook Pro (2008). It has two disks installed—the internal disk (/dev/disk1) and a PC Card SSD (/dev/disk0, surprisingly). It connects to a remote Time Machine volume attached to an Airport Extreme base station.

Best Answer

  1. It was probably running from when your Time Machine volume was mounted.
  2. If the volume isn't present anymore, I doubt it.
    • I'm sure you can sudo killall fsck_hfs; it wouldn't hurt anything. (Have you tried restarting?)
  3. It probably is.
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