Alsoft Support Database




	Search our library of technical support information! This database contains commonly asked questions and answers for all of our current products.


	Product DiskWarrior Question Is DiskWarrior capable of repairing an "Invalid Key Length" as reported by the Apple Disk Utility? Answer Yes, DiskWarrior can repair a "Invalid Key Length" error. Every file or folder (item) on a Mac OS Standard (HFS) or Mac OS Extended (HFS Plus) disk has a directory key. The term "key" is a shorter way of referring to a directory key. Item names can have a variable number of characters (length). Keys, in turn, are variable length because one component of a key is the name of its item. Although item names are variable length, they do have a maximum length. This imposes a maximum length on keys. A key with an invalid length is one which exceeds the maximum. It is essential that an item's key not be invalid if it is to be accessed. Disk Utility tests key lengths at the same time that key order is tested. Unfortunately, Disk Utility and even some third party repair utilities are unable to repair this problem. If your utility cannot fix this problem then you will have to use a more potent repair utility such as DiskWarrior. Should this information fail to resolve your issue, please contact Alsoft Technical Support.

# Product Version(s) Question

1 DiskWarrior 1.0 - 3.0.x

2 DiskWarrior 1.0 - 3.0.x

3 DiskWarrior 3.0.x

4 DiskWarrior 1.0 - 3.0.x

5 DiskWarrior 1.0 - 3.0.x

6 DiskWarrior 1.0 - 3.0.x

7 DiskWarrior 1.0 - 3.0.x

8 DiskWarrior All

9 DiskWarrior All

10 DiskWarrior All

11 DiskWarrior 4.x

12 DiskWarrior 4.x