Undeletable Files

[Dark Lain]

I have a handfule of files on my Mac that canot be altered, deleted, or moved. They can be read, executed, and copied. When copied I can then change the permisions on the new copy but the origonal remains stuck as it is.

When I try to change permissions on the problem files i get and (error code 120). When I try to do so in Terminal using the following comand

sudo chmod ugo+rwx Undeletable_File.html

I get the following error message:

chmod: Undeletable_File.html: Operation not permitted

My computer is Mac OS X 10.4.7 PowerPC G5

Thank you for any advice.

[robbieduncan]

Who owns the file? If it's not owned by you then you might see this issue. Paste the output of an ls -l...

[Dark Lain]

ls -l

-rw-r--r-- 1 501 501 75186 Aug 28 2005 Undeletable_File.html

As far as I know there is no User 501. This is my computer and my user name is different.

[robbieduncan]

501 is the userid. Have you removed a user from your system. Normally (iirc) the first user you create is 500, the second 501 and so on.

The reason it is showing a number not a user name is that this user id is not currently linked with a name on the system, indicating a user has been removed.

You should be able to remove the file with


sudo rm <filename>


this will ask you for your admin password assuming you are in the sudoers file.

[Dark Lain]

That worked!!! Thank you for your Help.