Disk Permissions constantly need repair Why?

[CamNam]

PowerBook G3 500 firewire 2000 256ram 12Gb OsX 10.2.8 Jag
LaCie triple 250 Gb ext and Momobay 20Gb

And the problem is that it rarely finds the external drives and I can get it to recognise the drives by repairing the Disc Permissions.
But I have to constantly repair them, then it crashes after some time and I need to repair them again - 5 or ten times a day usually. Driving me insane any ideas: this is the permissions corrected each time:


2004-12-02 10:26:20 +0000 - Repair of privileges has started
We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./System/Library/Filesystems/hfs.fs/hfs.util. New permissions are 33261
Permissions differ on ./usr/share/man/man1/less.1, should be -rw-r--r-- , they are -r--r--r--
Owner and group corrected on ./usr/share/man/man1/less.1
Permissions corrected on ./usr/share/man/man1/less.1
Permissions differ on ./usr/share/man/man1/more.1, should be -r--r--r-- , they are -rw-r--r--
Owner and group corrected on ./usr/share/man/man1/more.1
Permissions corrected on ./usr/share/man/man1/more.1
2004-12-02 10:37:03 +0000 - The privileges have been repaired on the selected volume.

I dont know where else to say this-----Thanks MacRumors and all the people here I did not know it existed till today and am so chuffed that I found this wonderful place! I am not alone any more.

 

[Nermal]

First of all, welcome!

As for your problem, it's interesting. The two files it repairs (less.1 and more.1) are actually the same file - it has two names. It's 'fixing' it, then changing it back again. I have absolutely no idea why it's doing this.

Maybe someone else knows a bit more about it.

 

[CamNam]

That's interesting you saying that.......

I ran Dusc utility from the instal disc and repaired the permisions four times and it did exactly the same repair each time. I think the next step may be to wipe the disc and start afresh completely. I have backups.
I did try aa system re-install a few weeks ago but no differenc after the updates. I will hold on a while as I may figure it out with a little help from you guy's out there,And I will read loads of the posts and try to understand some of the stuff that confuses me. ......Like the previous system folder (why are the Osx apps duplicated there?) and mostly everything else.
I have to go back to India next week, I hope I can fix it before I leave
Thanks
Paul
www.picturetrail.com/village

 

[Sun Baked]

Since you are using Disk Utility so often, what does the other tab -- Disk First Aid -- have to say about the drives?

Best to do all of them, even if you need to use fsck (or the CD) on the boot drive.