Help with stuck files in trash

[rbf1138]

I've searched this issue and I know there's a solution, I just need help manually determining what Terminal commands to use, as I'm not very experienced with it. I have two separate USB external drives, one of them makes folders show up in the trash, the other has two 0kb files that have names like

"íþ
ð
␀␀␀.␀␀␀"

When I get info them, they disappear but then snap back when I open the trash. What terminal commands will I need to first find them on the drives, then delete them?

Thanks, help is much appreciated.

 

[richard.mac]

enter this command into Terminal

sudo rm -r /Volumes/[I]Name of your USB drive[/I]/.Trashes; killall Finder

and then enter your password. this will remove and remake the Trash folder on your USB drive.

 

[rbf1138]

This wont delete anything else right?

 

[richard.mac]

if you run the command exactly as it is with the name of your USB drive in place it wont erase anything else. make sure the funky files are in in your USB drive's trash though.

 

[plinden]

It's unlikely that richthomas's suggestion will fix your problem permanently. The file will come back.

In most of the cases where this happens, it's due to corruption in a Boot Camp partition. Do you have Boot Camp/Windows installed?

If so, boot into Windows and run chkdsk. See http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071218191518177

If you don't have Windows installed, I don't think anyone's found the answer to this yet.

Edit: I didn't read your original post properly - put the USB drive in a Windows machine (or boot into Boot Camp/Windows) and run chkdsk on the external drive.

 

[rbf1138]

This happened on my MB, but I just got a brand new MBP today, and when I connect the hard drive it shows up here too, so it's definitely something to be deleted on the hard drive.

 

[plinden]

I'm guessing it's a FAT32 formatted drive, right? Has it ever been connected to a Windows machine? If so, it's likely corrupted somehow and running chkdsk in Windows will most likely fix it.

 

[rbf1138]

One partition is fat32, one is mac os journaled. I cant recall it ever being used with a windows machine though...

 

[rbf1138]

Ran Parallels, mounted both my drives with problems in it rather than as networked, ran disk check on both, one of them with the characters is all cleared up, the one that has folders with a bunch of 0kb mp3 files in them, still in the trash...damn

Both are fat32 drives, btw