[finboy]

As some of you guys know, I've been avoiding moving everything to OS X for a while now, and here's an example of why.

I'm adding discs to iTunes this weekend, and I added Office V.x (and updated it successfully) and suddenly my trash won't empty -- the machine locks up, with only the mouse moving. No kernel panic, just locks solid.

So I boot from the OS X cd and run "repair" and it gives me errors THAT IT CAN'T FIX. Says "another utility" will fix it. Got DiskWarrior today and that didn't fix it either.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. I'm probably going to end up in OS 9 to delete the offending files. I've tried fsck it, too.

UPDATE: Can't delete the files in OS 9 either, even after I've found them. When I run "rm" in superuser mode, it tells me that the files are "read-only system files."

Whatever. This is the kind of crap I expect from NT and WindowsXP, not MacOS.

[Macola]

Sounds like one of the Office background processes is running. Take a look at what's going on with top, and kill anything that's related to MS. Then try option-emptying the trash.

[finboy]

Nope, but that's a good thought. Nothing there.

I went into single-user to try to delete the files, and fsck the drive, and eventually ended up moving them (at least X would let me do that) and deleting AGAIN in OS 9.

Otherwise, they'd still be there in my basket, and my machine would lock up when I tried to dump the trash.

Amazing. Why anyone would think that millions of consumers running around with workstations is a GOOD THING escapes me. They are just file system horrors waiting to happen. Just like the good old days.

[cpac]

the world of file permissions is not really all that more obscure or difficult to deal with than the world of extension conflicts of old. The new system definitely took some getting used to for those of us that had built up our "Classic" knowledge, but once you do, the additional power and stability more than make up for any mild discomforts a switch has caused: Your experience of crashing on attempting to delete files is definitely atypical.

[finboy]

Originally posted by cpac:
the world of file permissions is not really all that more obscure or difficult to deal with than the world of extension conflicts of old. The new system definitely took some getting used to for those of us that had built up our "Classic" knowledge, but once you do, the additional power and stability more than make up for any mild discomforts a switch has caused: Your experience of crashing on attempting to delete files is definitely atypical.

If I hadn't been able to boot into OS 9 today, I would have had to reinitialize the drive.

Whenever I actually try to USE OS X for something, I get some "odd and unusual error" that "doesn't occur often." Except when I try to use OS X to get work done.

Or I find some essential utility that is only available from a third party for $100. Like a disk utility that actually - gasp - fixes things.

So far, I've reinstalled X almost as often as I've had to reinstall XP. That's bad.

To date, I've gotten absolutely no advantage from OS X. Given my experience with it, OS 7 was easier to use and more stable. OK, so 7.0.1 maybe.

[cpac]

well given your personal experience, I don't really blame you.

But you must realize that your experience is completely atypical - were it the norm, nobody (myself included) would use OS X.

Since 10.0 I've never had to reinstall. I did archive and install when I had major upgrades sometimes (though other times I just did the "upgrade" option). Random crashes and freezes have been far lest prevalent than they were in OS 8 for me.

As a possible trouble-shooting option - have you considered that maybe you've got some sort of hardware problem on your hands? I believe OS X tends to be less tolerant of bad ram and/or slightly damaged hard drives than 0S 9 was. Or maybe it just happens to be the programs/methods you use...

[Dr. Smoke]

Originally posted by finboy:
So I boot from the OS X cd and run "repair" and it gives me errors THAT IT CAN'T FIX. Says "another utility" will fix it. Got DiskWarrior today and that didn't fix it either.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this indicates that you have a serious problem with your hard drive. If you don't address this, you're going to have nothing but trouble in the future. You may wind up blaming problems on Mac OS X that should be blamed on not checking the drive before installing the OS.

When neither Disk Utility nor Disk Warrior can't fix the directory on a drive, this could indicate:

(1) a hard drive that is failing; or
(2) bad sectors on the drive.

Item (1) may be confirmed by using the Hardware tool in the Disk Warrior toolbar. This checks the SMART diagnostics on the drive. If SMART reports the drive is failing, backup your personal data ASAP and order a new hard drive.

Item (2) is fixed by the following procedure:

1. Back up your data.

2. Use Disk Utility (or Drive Setup) to Erase the drive with the Zero All Data option.

3. Reinstall the OS, your apps, and the data you backed-up in step 1.

Only by erasing the drive with the Zero All Data option can bad sectors be mapped out of service.

Mac OS X is especially sensitive to having hyper-clean hard drives due to its heavy use of virtual memory.

[Rev-O]

Not entirely pertinant, but...
I've run into the old 'cannot empty trash' thing on 10.3.6 as well, and, shockingly, it was when I was deleting the M$ Office off my iBook. Quit everything, scorched earth policy on everything related to M$ Office of my hd, and it came down to an icon associated with an empty office folder that was hanging the whole thing up. Got info on the offending folder and it appeared that I had permissions out the wazoo (read/write, unlocked, etc.). I'll admit I'm not the most savy person when it comes to the nuts & bolts of OS X, so I ended up using Cocktail to vaporize it. It was quite annoying.