@Override
    public void handleRegionStartKeyNotEmpty(HbckRegionInfo next) throws IOException {
      errors.reportError(HbckErrorReporter.ERROR_CODE.FIRST_REGION_STARTKEY_NOT_EMPTY,
        "First region should start with an empty key.  Creating a new "
          + "region and regioninfo in HDFS to plug the hole.",
        getTableInfo(), next);
      TableDescriptor htd = getTableInfo().getTableDescriptor();
      // from special EMPTY_START_ROW to next region's startKey
      RegionInfo newRegion = RegionInfoBuilder.newBuilder(htd.getTableName())
        .setStartKey(HConstants.EMPTY_START_ROW).setEndKey(next.getStartKey()).build();

      // TODO test
      HRegion region = HBaseFsckRepair.createHDFSRegionDir(conf, newRegion, htd);
      LOG.info("Table region start key was not empty.  Created new empty region: " + newRegion + " "
        + region);
      hbck.fixes++;
    }
This is a special case hole -- when the first region of a table is missing from META, HBase
doesn't acknowledge the existance of the table.
hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/util/HbckTableInfo.java