File Name With Unrecognized Characters

[dukefang99]

Ah, ok well that didn't work but I did learn something new. The file won't leave its containing folder, which also refuses to be deleted. When I try to rename the file, I also get an error -43. The containing folder can, however, be moved wherever.

Any other ideas?

[Mikuro]

I often get strange permission settings when I use drop boxes. Get Info on the file (select the file and go to the File menu) and set the "owner" to your account and be sure the access level is "read & write". You might also need to do this for the containing folder.

[artov]

Ah, ok well that didn't work but I did learn something new. The file won't leave its containing folder, which also refuses to be deleted. When I try to rename the file, I also get an error -43. The containing folder can, however, be moved wherever.

Any other ideas?

This comes from the notion that MAC OSX is Unix: Open Terminal.app, type
sudo su - and give your password. You should be as root (the Unix superuser).
Then type

# cd ~yourname/Desktop

(The # is your prompt, do not type it) you said it is on your desktop, right?

Then type

# ls -i

You should see list on number, filename pairs. Check the number of the file.
It is its inum (in Unix files are actually associated with inum; name is only an
alias to the inum) .

Then type

# find . -inum 44444 -exec rm '{}' \;

where 44444 is the number. The find command is switch army knife of
Unix; in this case it search file with inum same as ls -i, then it executes
the rm command and gives the name (in place of {}).

[dukefang99]

wow ok, i think this is going to work, but I'm a little confused with the last line of command

the inum is 2955126

can you write out exactly what I would do in that last line of command again to get rid of this file? If you could even write it out in a way that I could simply copy and paste it into terminal I would be eternally greatful

You're a lifesaver btw!!!!

[dukefang99]

something is still wrong, I'll show you exactly what I'm writing and maybe you can tell me what I'm doing wrong:

root# find . -inum 2955126 -exec rm '{}' \;

is what I entered into the terminal, and when I do so all I get is this:

find:

and then it IMMEDIATELY skips to the next line of command. I have also tried the above command without the ending semicolon with the same result as well as replacing the two brackets with a name for the file...What am I doing wrong?

Thanks again for all the help provided thus far!

[artov]

something is still wrong, I'll show you exactly what I'm writing and maybe you can tell me what I'm doing wrong:

root# find . -inum 2955126 -exec rm '{}' \;

is what I entered into the terminal, and when I do so all I get is this:

find:

and then it IMMEDIATELY skips to the next line of command. I have also tried the above command without the ending semicolon with the same result as well as replacing the two brackets with a name for the file...What am I doing wrong?

Thanks again for all the help provided thus far!

The whole idea of the command was, that you do not have to type the
filename (it had wierd characters, right?). Are you sure you typed

cd "the directory where the file is" ?

That is what the "." stand for.

BTW: Do you have OSX 10.4.3 ? It's hard disk tool can fix even mounted
disks, so it might do something to the file.

[ra3ndy]

Make sure you type:

cd ~yourname/Desktop

and hit enter before you type:

find . -inum 2955126 -exec rm '{}' \;