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Anyone have any ideas deleting my trash taking FOREVER.. it was going on 14hrs now...

OverSpun

OverSpun

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 12, 2006
1,121
82
California
I basically had a partition on my external HD for Time Machine, and that part was too big, and I wanted cleaning it off to get more space again. I copied everything into my trash, and its taking forever, and a lot are locked, so I need to delete it all. I cant figure it. I tried a few apps to do it, but that takes almost the same time. Is there a trick for terminal? I'm not too good with terminal, so I wouldnt know. =/
Thanks!
 
Either hold down Option while you empty the trash to force empty (gets past the locks etc.), or use the command line:

Code: 
rm -rf ~/.Trash/*

You could also use an application like Cocktail to force empty the trash.
 
If you are deleting any iMovie files you'll be in for a long, long evening. I once deleted some iMovie clips and it took all night long for what seemed like not that many.:cool:
 
Elbert C said:
Solving Trash Problems
Click to expand...

I tried this, and made a new account to try this account for my normal account with the issues:


Empty and recreate an account's Trash

The following procedure will "kill two birds with one stone." It will both:

Empty the Trash of an affected account.
Create a new ~/.Trash directory, with correct ownership and permissions, for that account.
Perform the following steps in the order specified:

1. If the affected account is protected by FileVault, log in to the affected account, then switch to and log in to your Admin account via Fast User Switching. Otherwise, log in to your Admin account.
2. Open Terminal, located in the Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities folder.
3.
At the Terminal prompt, type one of the following commands:

If the affected account is: Then type the Terminal command:
Your Admin account: sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash
Another user account: sudo rm -rf /Users/user_name/.Trash
where user_name is the short name of the affected account.

Note that:

There is a single space after each of the terms sudo, rm, and -rf in the command.
Assure you have typed the command exactly as specified before proceeding: typographical errors in this command can have dire consequences, including erasing your hard drive!
4. Press Return.
5. Type your Admin password when prompted, then press Return.
6. If the affected account is your Admin account, log out. If the affected account was another user account that is logged in via Fast User Switching, log out of that account.
7. Log in to the affected account. It will now have a new, working, and empty Trash.
Steps 1-5 remove all files in the affected account's Trash as well as deleting the hidden and invisible ~/.Trash directory for that account. The remaining steps result in recreating the affected account's Trash, with proper ownership and permissions.


And, I login on my initial account, and now i tried secure delete and I get another error right away. It says this-

Screenshot2010-08-16at114452AM.png
 
Yeah the only options I see now if it's a time machine volume is to disable Time Machine, and then try, or format the volume, erasing everything on it in one swoop.
 
Relentlos said:
Yeah the only options I see now if it's a time machine volume is to disable Time Machine, and then try, or format the volume, erasing everything on it in one swoop.
Click to expand...

I'm just afraid losing files on the main part of the partition. Is that possible to just delete that partition... but the only problem. Those files wont "send back" or whatever it calls it to move all the files where they came from. It wont work. They are stuck on the trash. Its new problems everywhere.
 
OverSpun said:
I'm just afraid losing files on the main part of the partition. Is that possible to just delete that partition... but the only problem. Those files wont "send back" or whatever it calls it to move all the files where they came from. It wont work. They are stuck on the trash. Its new problems everywhere.
Click to expand...

I'm not familiar with deleting partitions (can't do that on OS X 10.4.11 Tiger) but you should be able to erase that partition without effecting the other(s). Unless something has changed with Snow Leopard, Trash is a part of the disk/disc. If you dismount the partition does the full Trash disappear. If it does, then it should erase when you erase the partition.
 
also, trash it has been going for few hours now, and has maybe 2mm blue bars since i started it, and I cant tell if its moving. The waves are showing on it, so it seems like its working, but right clicking it says "not responding"
 
OverSpun said:
also, trash it has been going for few hours now, and has maybe 2mm blue bars since i started it, and I cant tell if its moving. The waves are showing on it, so it seems like its working, but right clicking it says "not responding"
Click to expand...

Can you Force Quit it then?
 
DewGuy1999 said:
Can you Force Quit it then?
Click to expand...

I can force quit it, but it'll probable restart again if i need to. haha. This is ridiculous. I've been trying fixing this for 3 days now.

also, in snow leopard, can i go into disk utility and pick the partition and erase it, and thats fine? Obviously, I wont be deleting the other partition... but I'm just being careful. Its a 1.5TB HD


EDIT:

I force quit trash it. It doesnt seem its working. Oh well.
 
OverSpun said:
I can force quit it, but it'll probable restart again if i need to. haha. This is ridiculous. I've been trying fixing this for 3 days now.

also, in snow leopard, can i go into disk utility and pick the partition and erase it, and thats fine? Obviously, I wont be deleting the other partition... but I'm just being careful. Its a 1.5TB HD
Click to expand...

Yes, in Snow Leopard you should be able to erase just the partition that you were using for Time Machine. In the sidebar of Disk Utility you'll see your HD and inset beneath that will be the various partitions, just select the one you want to erase and then over on the right side of Disk Utility you'll see different options that you can do to the partition selected. Choose the Erase Tab, read the info presented there (OS X also refers to a partition as a volume), choose the options you want, and then click the Erase button.

The above is based on my Disk Utility in 10.4.11, it may be different in Snow Leopard but should present the same abilities.
 
DewGuy1999 said:
Yes, in Snow Leopard you should be able to erase just the partition that you were using for Time Machine. In the sidebar of Disk Utility you'll see your HD and inset beneath that will be the various partitions, just select the one you want to erase and then over on the right side of Disk Utility you'll see different options that you can do to the partition selected. Choose the Erase Tab, read the info presented there (OS X also refers to a partition as a volume), choose the options you want, and then click the Erase button.

The above is based on my Disk Utility in 10.4.11, it may be different in Snow Leopard but should present the same abilities.
Click to expand...

Sweet. I'm trying disk utility to check it... its being slow, but I figured to try that before I tried that before anything else. It says its taking 1.5hrs checking the partition. Terrible. Everything is slow. See, this is why I was ordering my new imac i7 but I had too much stuff to finish before getting a new computer to work on this. It'll be soon.
 
Partitions act like separate HDDs, so if you format one partition, the other(s) should be unaffected.

That's the reason partitions exist for the most part. You can install another OS on a separate partition, which acts like a separate HDD, so the install process would not affect anything on the main.


They also work for splitting a disk up into different file systems or dedicated part of it to something like Time Machine. I have a 300GB HDD split in half pretty much, one half is HFS+J, and used to clone my HDD. The other half is NTFS, and used to transfer large files between OS X/Windows.
 
OverSpun said:
Sweet. I'm trying disk utility to check it... its being slow, but I figured to try that before I tried that before anything else. It says its taking 1.5hrs checking the partition. Terrible. Everything is slow. See, this is why I was ordering my new imac i7 but I had too much stuff to finish before getting a new computer to work on this. It'll be soon.
Click to expand...

Sounds like you have a problem beside the trash emptying. I can't imagine Disk Utility taking 1.5hrs to check a disk. How is the external hard drive connected to your Mac?

If you decide to erase that partition be aware that it erases EVERYTHING on that partition. EVERYTHING will be gone. If that's okay then go ahead with the erase. If you can't loose EVERYTHING on that partition then you'll have to move it off before you do the erase.
 
Relentlos said:
Partitions act like separate HDDs, so if you format one partition, the other(s) should be unaffected.

That's the reason partitions exist for the most part. You can install another OS on a separate partition, which acts like a separate HDD, so the install process would not affect anything on the main.


They also work for splitting a disk up into different file systems or dedicated part of it to something like Time Machine. I have a 300GB HDD split in half pretty much, one half is HFS+J, and used to clone my HDD. The other half is NTFS, and used to transfer large files between OS X/Windows.
Click to expand...

I definitely did the same between OSX / Windows on my MBP for work, and I only needed a small partition for that at 15gb for a few programs that for work.

So, erasing that partition on my issue on this computer it'll just delete the issues in the trash, right? and possibly to reformat that partition still? or it'll not needed?
 
DewGuy1999 said:
Do you mean you ran Repair Disk using Disk Utility and that fixed it or did you erase it?
Click to expand...

I never needed repair disk, i only checked it and it said fine, then I erased it on the partition for time machine, and I just restarted the comp and went for disk utility and erased it. It worked really fast. Good idea for remembering that if it happens again. :)
 
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