Damaged Files folder: Created by Disk First Aid?

Regarding yesterday's item on the creation of a Damaged Files folder and where it comes from, readers are sharply divided:

It's Disk First Aid

Rob Kennedy reiterates: "Disk First Aid is the only disk utility I have. I am confident that Disk First Aid did in fact create the Damaged Files folder."

Jeff Kenny concurs: "I too had this folder and it was created by Disk First Aid. I promise. When I booted into 9 and ran DFA on the X partition so I could actually fix the errors, it created a folder called Damaged Files but didn't actually move any files into it, they were just aliases... Interestingly the files were the mach system file for X and my IE cache.waf file for the X version of IE. I forget what the actual error was, but it was something that I interpreted as meaning the 2 files were pointing to the same chunk of hard drive space... Whatever it was, X was not happy with it at all, which was what prompted the boot into 9 to check it out."

It's not Disk First Aid

Dave Schroeder replies: "The Damaged Files folder at the root of the disk, with aliases in it, is created by Norton Utilities . This doesn't necessarily mean the 'mach'-related files are damaged either, but it's definitely Norton Utilities that creates this folder."

Update: A MacFixIt reader suggested we use ResEdit to check the resource fork of Disk First Aid 8.6.1. We did. We found that STR -20886 contains the string "Damaged Files". We also found that string 15 of STR# 131 states: "Volume '%1' had overlapping extents. Two or more files were accessing the same disk block. Aliases to the damaged files have been created in the folder '%2:%3'."

This appears to confirm that Disk First Aid does indeed create a Damaged Files Folder!

Update: Further word from readers notes that Norton Utilities can create such a folder as well. For example, Brett DeCarion writes: "Look for the setting under Preferences of NDD called Damaged Files."