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Locked Burn Folder won't delete

C

Chimera

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 29, 2004
256
0
Surrey, England
Hi all, i'm having a problem deleting a folder which disk utility created when I was burning a CD, however during the process there was a kernel panic and I had to restart the system.

The folder will not even move to the trash, let alone delete, and I have even tried using the terminal to no avail.

Thanks in advance.
 
What are you trying in Terminal?

You should probably be trying this (from the desktop or wherever the folder is):

sudo rm -rf "Burn Folder.fpbf"

Which will ask you to provide an admin password....
 
I type: sudo rm -rf ~/users/fdewar/Desktop/Untitled CD

It asks for my password and then nothing happens, I must be doing something wrong?
 
Chimera said:
I type: sudo rm -rf ~/users/fdewar/Desktop/Untitled CD

It asks for my password and then nothing happens, I must be doing something wrong?
Click to expand...

Actually more than one somethings wrong. ;)

But we'll get you there.

Number one: you must understand how Unix command lines handle long file names. The filename must either be in quotes (see mine) or you must use the characters "\ " (backslash space) for a space. Otherwise it thought the filename ended at Untitled and that CD was a second argument.

Number two: Make sure you're deleting the right thing. You ejected the disc itself, right? Now, you have an apparent burn folder on the desktop. Go to the desktop and do "ls -la" in terminal to see what's actually there. If there is a burn folder, it should probably have an extension on the name like in my example. So you've got to include that, as well. I think it should have exactly the same name except with an .fpbf at the end.

Number three: ~ refers to the home directory already, so you're pointing to a nonsensical and non-existent location.

So you should end up with:

sudo rm -rf "~/Desktop/Untitled CD.fpbf"
 
mkrishnan said:
Is the folder still there according to terminal after the rm command? Try using the rm command without the f flag...

sudo rm -r "~/desktop/untitled cd.fpbf"

What error message do you get?
Click to expand...

Ok well now it says that no such file or directory exists, despite it remaining on my desktop.
 
Chimera said:
Ok well now it says that no such file or directory exists, despite it remaining on my desktop.
Click to expand...

Do ls -la on the desktop... is it listed there or not?

If it's not listed there, and the CD is not in the drive, but you still see it on the desktop, then go to the Apple menu, select Force Quit, and then relaunch Finder from there. See if that helps.
 
mkrishnan said:
Do ls -la on the desktop... is it listed there or not?

If it's not listed there, and the CD is not in the drive, but you still see it on the desktop, then go to the Apple menu, select Force Quit, and then relaunch Finder from there. See if that helps.
Click to expand...

Ok using the ls -la command it still exists on the desktop.
 
Chimera said:
Ok using the ls -la command it still exists on the desktop.
Click to expand...

Okay... :rolleyes:

First, cd desktop so that you are actually in the desktop folder.
Now, use sudo rm -rf " "

In the quotes, put EXACTLY the name of the burn folder as it appears when you do ls -la. Make sure it's in quotes, make sure you use exactly the name that appears in the ls -la output, including the extension.

See if that works?

EDIT: I don't see anything in your last reply?

EDIT2: Okay, now I see it, but I really needed to see the ls -la output.... Again, I'd suggest the above. There's something subtly wrong with your command. sudo rm -rf should never refuse to delete a file or folder that genuinely exists.
 
mkrishnan said:
Sorry, I was editing at the same time as you... as I said in my previous post, I really need to see the ls -la. No need for a picture. You can copy and paste it into your text response.
Click to expand...

Here you go:

total 104
drwx------ 7 fdewar fdewar 238 Dec 30 15:32 .
drwxr-xr-x 21 fdewar fdewar 714 Dec 29 13:34 ..
-rw------- 1 fdewar fdewar 24580 Dec 30 15:32 .DS_Store
-rw-r--r-- 1 fdewar fdewar 0 Nov 6 23:06 .localized
drwxr-xr-x 7 fdewar fdewar 238 Dec 26 15:28 Dad
-rw-r--r-- 1 fdewar fdewar 22470 Dec 30 15:32 Picture 1.png
drwxr-xr-x 4 fdewar fdewar 136 Dec 29 21:40 Untitled CD.fpbf
 
And when you're in that directory, and you try to rm -rf that, nothing happens, and when you do rm -r, it claims the file doesn't exist?

A couple of ideas... it is a directory that may not be empty. rm -rf should take care of that (that's what the r is for). Nonetheless, try CD'ing into it and deleting what's inside it first, again using sudo rm -rf.

The other idea is to do this command first. cd into the desktop and then:

sudo chmod -r 666 "Untitled CD.fpbf"

Then see if you can either delete it from the Finder or from terminal.
 
Alternate way would be to boot off a firewire or other disk and see if you can trash it from there. It lacks the finesse of other solutions, but may be simpler.
 
Thanks for all your help, I finally managed to delete it by going into Get Info then unticking the locked box :eek: ! Which it suggested when I tried to reburn the folder.

Thanks again, Frankie
 
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