Undeletable files?? Help!!

videoflyer

videoflyer

Registered
I have a directory on an external firewire drive that I'd like to delete but it's being exceedingly stubborn. I can move it to the trash but when I try to empty the trash and it starts counting up the files with the message "preparing to empty trash" it goes on for a looooonnnnng time counting up into the hundreds of thousands of files. Finally, the message reverts to "emptying trash" but the number of files is now shown as '0' and nothing further happens - I can only dismiss the Empty Trash dialogue box.

I tried using Terminal and the "sudo rm -r " command (typing in the full path to the folder, of course). EVERY SINGLE FILE OR FOLDER is listed as either "filename too long" or "no such file or directory" - and the folder and all of its contents remain right where they were on the blasted external drive.

I'm on 10.4.8, very new to unix and only found out about the sudo command above from a search of these forums. Can anyone suggest a next step? I just want to be rid of this directory...

Help!! :)


-Neal
---------------------------
"If morons could fly it'd be pitch black." - anonymous
 
I did try TrashIt. It appeared to be working on the problem for quite a while before finally returning an error (I'll have to try it again if anyone needs the error number - I didn't make a note of it). And the files were all still there....completely intact and laughing at me!

-Neal
 
Oops. What I'd actually tried was DeleteIt. And I should've mentioned this in my first post, in any event. Tried DeleteIt and something called Graveyard to no avail. Since they didn't work and I'm always hearing about the power of using Unix tools directly, I figured Unix was the way to go. No?

I'll take a gander at TrashIt...

-Neal
 
Hmmmm.....trying TrashIt now. As I write this, the status window has been sitting on "Please wait...Unlocking files..." for about 17 minutes (I'm not using a stopwatch but that's a pretty accurate time).

Nothing further has happened yet although I am able to operate in any other application but the Finder so long as I don't mind having the TrashIt status window on top of whatever I'm doing.

-Neal
 
Well, hell's bells. After 27 minutes, the status window finally changed to "Deleting dropped files..." but there was also a popup with a listing of files (I could only see so many because the window wasn't scrollable and there WERE a ton of files in that directory) and each of them were indicated as either "filename too long" or "no such file or directory." I clicked 'Okay' and was thanked for using TrashIt just before the app quit.

So, I'm still on square one, apparently. All of those files appear to be still there although their icons seem to have gone missing...

-Neal
 
Okay, now this is REALLY weird --

I went to look at the directory I've been trying to trash. I see what appears to be endlessly recursive folders. That is, inside each folder is the same file listing along with a folder at the top that wasn't there originally. Inside THAT folder is......exactly the same thing. Including that new folder, inside of which is......exactly the same thing AGAIN. I kept drilling down for quite a few levels before giving up and deciding that they were, indeed, endlessly recursive (am I using that word correctly?).

If anyone has any suggestions short of wiping the drive and starting over I'd be most grateful.

Thanks!

-Neal
 
Methinks you don't have a "trash" problem, but a "directory"
problem. Have you run that HD past TechTool Pro or Disk
Warrior?

You could also try the built-in repair. In lieu of typing the commands,
I got AppleJack from macupdate. Now every time I start in single
user mode (command-S), I'm offered the option to fire up AppleJack,
which brings up a menu delightfully reminiscent of MS-DOS.
 
Since we're talking about trashing files maybe you can answer my query: Can you trash .pkg files cause after they have been installed they're all sitting there about 232 of them taking up space? I also find when I download a file with Stuffit it sits on the desktop and once it has been installed can I also trash that? Thanks.
 
Bumbleboo said:
Since we're talking about trashing files maybe you can answer my query: Can you trash .pkg files cause after they have been installed they're all sitting there about 232 of them taking up space? I also find when I download a file with Stuffit it sits on the desktop and once it has been installed can I also trash that? Thanks.
Click to expand...

If the file is not part of a program, but just an update or temporary file, you can trash it, especially if you know where you got it from.


Good luck, Kees
 
Sadly, as the result of MacOS X itself or a third party 'disk' utility - a file, files, or folder(s) may be renamed, or 'touched', in such as way, as not to be delete-able.

The only solution I know of, which always works - is to backup all the data [less the troublesome item(s)] elsewhere, reformat the volume, and reinstall the backed up data. Such a solution is complicated, if the drive in question - is ones' boot drive.
 
videoflyer said:
Okay, now this is REALLY weird --

I went to look at the directory I've been trying to trash. I see what appears to be endlessly recursive folders. That is, inside each folder is the same file listing along with a folder at the top that wasn't there originally. Inside THAT folder is......exactly the same thing. Including that new folder, inside of which is......exactly the same thing AGAIN. I kept drilling down for quite a few levels before giving up and deciding that they were, indeed, endlessly recursive (am I using that word correctly?).

-Neal
Click to expand...

Have the drive checked for bad clusters. If not, some program meshed up the drive and created a directory entry which locks back into itself. Short of a disk editor i do not know of some programs, but be sure that trashing something like that will require a smart program as otherwise the program will follow the tree until it runs out of something (most likely memory, otherwise maybe drive space). I think that formatting the drive might be the only solution for this problem. But backup the contents first ofcourse.

Maybe you can give the terminal ls -al result.


Good luck, Kees
 
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