diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index 8467de51758..35a444018d3 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -38,5 +38,5 @@ Trunk (unreleased changes)
  23. HADOOP-1509.  Made methods/inner classes in HRegionServer and HClient protected
      instead of private for easier extension. Also made HRegion and HRegionInfo public too.
      Added an hbase-default.xml property for specifying what HRegionInterface extension to use
-     for proxy server connection.
- 
+     for proxy server connection. 
+ 24. HADOOP-1534. [hbase] Memcache scanner fails if start key not present
diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HMemcache.java b/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HMemcache.java
index 585e51306c8..03eb6320b5f 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HMemcache.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HMemcache.java
@@ -332,8 +332,8 @@ public class HMemcache {
      * @return true if this is the first row
      */
     boolean findFirstRow(int i, Text firstRow) {
-      return ((firstRow.getLength() == 0)
-          || (keys[i].getRow().toString().startsWith(firstRow.toString())));
+      return firstRow.getLength() == 0 ||
+        keys[i].getRow().compareTo(firstRow) >= 0;
     }
     
     /**
diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HRegionServer.java b/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HRegionServer.java
index d9245cf00ba..f1c79a0f45e 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HRegionServer.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/HRegionServer.java
@@ -446,7 +446,7 @@ public class HRegionServer implements HConstants, HRegionInterface, Runnable {
       if(fs.exists(logdir)) {
         throw new RegionServerRunningException("region server already running at " +
           this.serverInfo.getServerAddress().toString() + " because logdir " +
-          " exists");
+          logdir.toString() + " exists");
       }
       
       this.log = new HLog(fs, logdir, conf);