diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
index cd3bb597d23..ee15c126c1b 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/CHANGES.txt
@@ -333,6 +333,9 @@ Release 2.5.0 - UNRELEASED
     HADOOP-10864. Tool documentenation is broken. (Akira Ajisaka
     via Arpit Agarwal)
 
+    HADOOP-10872. TestPathData fails intermittently with "Mkdirs failed
+    to create d1". (Yongjun Zhang via Arpit Agarwal)
+
 Release 2.4.1 - 2014-06-23 
 
   INCOMPATIBLE CHANGES
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/ChecksumFileSystem.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/ChecksumFileSystem.java
index b67eadd94fc..511ca7f7549 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/ChecksumFileSystem.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/ChecksumFileSystem.java
@@ -437,7 +437,9 @@ public abstract class ChecksumFileSystem extends FilterFileSystem {
         throw new FileNotFoundException("Parent directory doesn't exist: "
             + parent);
       } else if (!mkdirs(parent)) {
-        throw new IOException("Mkdirs failed to create " + parent);
+        throw new IOException("Mkdirs failed to create " + parent
+            + " (exists=" + exists(parent) + ", cwd=" + getWorkingDirectory()
+            + ")");
       }
     }
     final FSDataOutputStream out;
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/shell/TestPathData.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/shell/TestPathData.java
index 3ddd68da23f..ea9e9847fd3 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/shell/TestPathData.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/shell/TestPathData.java
@@ -35,19 +35,22 @@ import org.junit.Before;
 import org.junit.Test;
 
 public class TestPathData {
+  private static final String TEST_ROOT_DIR = 
+      System.getProperty("test.build.data","build/test/data") + "/testPD";
   protected Configuration conf;
   protected FileSystem fs;
   protected Path testDir;
-
+  
   @Before
   public void initialize() throws Exception {
     conf = new Configuration();
     fs = FileSystem.getLocal(conf);
-    testDir = new Path(
-        System.getProperty("test.build.data", "build/test/data") + "/testPD"
-    );
+    testDir = new Path(TEST_ROOT_DIR);
+    
     // don't want scheme on the path, just an absolute path
     testDir = new Path(fs.makeQualified(testDir).toUri().getPath());
+    fs.mkdirs(testDir);
+
     FileSystem.setDefaultUri(conf, fs.getUri());    
     fs.setWorkingDirectory(testDir);
     fs.mkdirs(new Path("d1"));
@@ -60,6 +63,7 @@ public class TestPathData {
 
   @After
   public void cleanup() throws Exception {
+    fs.delete(testDir, true);
     fs.close();
   }