you could boot from an external volume and then get to them. But were they backed up by Time Machine or something else before?
I’m not sure the 2017 disk was. It’s an old drive I can’t access any more so I’d love it if I could get these files.
Does the Mac boot on its own? If it does than you should be about to get to them.
It’s referring to files, not volumes, so they could be stale hard links. I’d try booting from an external drive, if possible, and look in / to see what shows.
stevebob: the mac boots fine. I got that message when I was about to erase it for trade-in.
Atropos: Thanks! Where would I look after booting from an external drive?
Open “Macintosh HD” in the Finder. They should appear alongside root level folders like Users and System.