help. file on external drive placed in trash on a user account that was then deleted.

[astromoose]

Hello,
I had a large ~20GB or so file on an external USB drive that was placed in the trash (but not emptied) under one user account. This account was then deleted. The file in question that was placed in the trash is not visible on the drive but i can tell by the amount of used space on that disk that it is still taking up space. I don't care about getting the file back, I would actually like to make sure it is gone and recover the disk space. Any ideas?

Any help appreciated.
Thanks.
(running 10.6.1)

 

[angelwatt]

Use disk utility, and use the erase free space option on the drive. I think this should clear it up.

 

[astromoose]

Thanks for the suggestion.

I have already done that.

 

[Tyr.]

Open terminal and do the following :

go to the volume in question, enter the hidden trash directory

cd "/Volumes/NAME OF VOLUME HERE/"
cd .Trashes
ls -lart

See any large files ? If so delete :

sudo rm -fr NameOfYourFile

The "sudo" is there to give you admin authority, you will need to enter your password. Be careful with the rm command !