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forumhound · May 19, 2008, 02:48 PM

Hi, i have a superstuck trashbin that no way will empty short of cloning the system to another fresh install on another mac. I have tried empty, secure emtpy, icemachine, diskwarrior, disk utility, all of it. These files look like remnants of a windows VM of yesteryear...part of the windows itunes library that no longer exists:

Randman · May 19, 2008, 02:58 PM

Did you restart the computer then try to empty?

turtle777 · May 19, 2008, 03:04 PM

Terminal, type
"sudo rm -Ri " and then drag the "Snow Patrol" folder from the Trash into the terminal window.
It should look something like "sudo rm -Rf /Users/username/path to something/Snow Patrol... "

Hit enter, enter admin password.

The -i flag will ask permission (confirmation) before removing anything.

Disclaimer: BE VERY CAREFUL: "sudo rm -Rf /" would delete your whole HD w/o asking to confirm.
If you are not familiar with the Terminal, better not use this.

-t

forumhound · May 19, 2008, 03:19 PM

Turtle, i get this error:
rm: illegal option -- /
usage: rm [-f | -i] [-dPRrvW] file ...
unlink file
I am in 10.5.2...

turtle777 · May 19, 2008, 03:25 PM

Originally Posted by forumhound

Turtle, i get this error:
rm: illegal option -- /
usage: rm [-f | -i] [-dPRrvW] file ...
unlink file
I am in 10.5.2...

If you remove individual files, leave the -Ri flag out. It's to process folders recursively, and ask for confirmation along the way.
(Safer option, you can substitue the -Ri with -Rf, and it will never ask for confirmation. If you fsck up, though, you won't know until it's over).

So for ind. files, it should be "sudo rm /path/filename"

-t

Hal Itosis · May 19, 2008, 04:05 PM

Originally Posted by forumhound

i get this error:
rm: illegal option -- /
usage: rm [-f | -i] [-dPRrvW] file ...
unlink file

Looks like you made a typo somewhere, and entered rm -/ (or some such thing).
Had you also posted the *preceding* line (the one you entered that caused the error),
then we would have known a lot more.

Originally Posted by turtle777

If you remove individual files, leave the -Ri flag out. It's to process folders recursively, and ask for confirmation along the way. (Safer option, you can substitute the -Ri with -Rf, and it will never ask for confirmation. If you fsck up, though, you won't know until it's over). So for ind. files, it should be "sudo rm /path/filename"

Can't tell for sure if I'm reading that right.
So i'll just say that: -f (force) is not "safer" than -i (interactive)...
and -R doesn't care if the arg is a folder or a file. [rm will still work, either way.]

FatGuy · May 19, 2008, 05:09 PM

Try holding down the Option key while emptying.

JKT · May 19, 2008, 06:32 PM

If you look at the bottom left corner of the Final Straw folder you will see a padlock, indicating that the folder is locked (as the error message is telling you). Either do as the error message/Fat Guy is telling you or Get info on the folder and deselect the 'Locked' check box (under the General heading in the Get info dialogue), then delete.

turtle777 · May 19, 2008, 07:01 PM

Originally Posted by Hal Itosis

Can't tell for sure if I'm reading that right.
So i'll just say that: -f (force) is not "safer" than -i (interactive)...
and -R doesn't care if the arg is a folder or a file. [rm will still work, either way.]

Sorry, I wasn't clear in my post.

I meant it this way:

If you remove individual files, leave the -Ri flag out. It [-Ri] is to process folders recursively, and ask for confirmation along the way. That's the safer option.

You can substitue the -Ri with -Rf, and it will never ask for confirmation (= unsafe)

I basically gave him the safe option first, which would prompt him to cinfirm everything that gets deleted. in case he tried to rm -R /, it would ask him about eleventy billion times for confirmation.

-t

CharlesS · May 19, 2008, 07:07 PM

However, since the problem seems to be just that the files are locked, just holding down the Option key while emptying the trash as FatGuy suggested is much simpler and will work just as well.

forumhound · 08:16 PM

thanks for the help, but this one is bad bad. the locked folder is read only, says i don't have permission, but I am the admin so go figure.

i have tried booting from OSX to repair permission, etc, etc. This problem is specific to this account however, I have verified that. short of deleting the account and starting over, not sure what else to do!

I think this is a parallels snafu originally, ie. when I have PD open, I can empty the trash, but as soon as PD closes, the trash comes back! very strange...

mkerr64 · May 19, 2008, 11:06 PM

helped me:
Solving Trash Problems

besson3c · May 20, 2008, 12:43 AM

sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash/*

forumhound · May 20, 2008, 01:53 AM

Besson, thanks, but no luck. nothing happens. I just noticed that OSX thinks these files reside here:
/Volumes/WINXP/.Trashes/501/Snow\ Patrol\ -\ Final\ Straw\ -\ 256Kbs which is a fat32 bootcamp partition. perhaps this has something to do with it's stickiness.

Mkerr, thanks for that comprehensive list of stuff, I got way down into it to the part for hard-to-clean trashes, and it got into suggesting third-party softwares I never heard of. Our machines have icemachine and diskwarrior, and I prefer not to go beyond that if unless its an emergency, which this is obviously not!

ghporter · May 20, 2008, 06:52 AM

Have you tried...

Repairing the disk (boot from the OS X DVD and use Disk Utility to repair the whole disk, NOT JUST the volume) and then trying to empty the trash?

Starting the computer in Safe Mode and emptying the trash?

Starting in Single User Mode and emptying the trash?

(Grasping at straws here...)

besson3c · May 20, 2008, 09:08 AM

Originally Posted by forumhound

Besson, thanks, but no luck. nothing happens. I just noticed that OSX thinks these files reside here:
/Volumes/WINXP/.Trashes/501/Snow\ Patrol\ -\ Final\ Straw\ -\ 256Kbs which is a fat32 bootcamp partition. perhaps this has something to do with it's stickiness.

Mkerr, thanks for that comprehensive list of stuff, I got way down into it to the part for hard-to-clean trashes, and it got into suggesting third-party softwares I never heard of. Our machines have icemachine and diskwarrior, and I prefer not to go beyond that if unless its an emergency, which this is obviously not!

Could you be more specific? Does it prompt you for your password? Does it spit out any errors (it should if it finds something it can't delete)? Can you display us the output of:

ls -l ~/.Trash/path/to/undeleteable_file

Is it hardlinked to the above path? How did you discover that path name?

CharlesS · May 20, 2008, 10:07 AM

Originally Posted by forumhound

Besson, thanks, but no luck. nothing happens. I just noticed that OSX thinks these files reside here:
/Volumes/WINXP/.Trashes/501/Snow\ Patrol\ -\ Final\ Straw\ -\ 256Kbs which is a fat32 bootcamp partition. perhaps this has something to do with it's stickiness.

Try this, then:

(two-part command because I don't like putting rm -r and / or * in the same command)

cd /Volumes/WINXP/.Trashes/501
sudo rm -r 'Snow Patrol - Final Straw - 256Kbs'

See if that gets rid of it.