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Trash question

RollTide

RollTide

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 9, 2006
448
0
Alabama
Hey guys, I downloaded Windows media player, and then moved it to trash. All of it. When I try to clear out trash, it just says "Whatever" cannot be deleted because it is locked. Okay, well I took it out, pushed get info and unlocked it. there are three files that need to be deleted, all three are unlocked.

This is just annoying, and it would be nice to be able to empty trash without getting this stuff out of there since cannot empty trash with windows media player in there. Intel iMac running latest version of tiger.

I'm lost, and any help would be appreciated.
 
Thanks! that worked, but it still left a htm file that cannot be deleted because it says that it is in use. the file is 2.1 mb and looks like that piece of paper with a pencil and a ruler in front of it. Any other ideas?
 
Sometimes its as simple as logging out and logging back in, the TrashCan fixes itself (file system).

I think there is a bug when a user attempts to empty too soon after deleting large files or large groups of files. Meaning, the "empty" process runs before the lock/move to trashcan/unlock background process is fully finished, leaving the lock intact.

I've had this happen numerous times in Tiger and Leopard with large files or large groups of files marked for deletion, and never with small files.

But I could be wrong.

Maybe the developers should re-examine this part of the OS code and simply shadow out/disable the "empty" option or display a warning dialog that processing is ongoing -- until the background process is indeed fully terminated.

Just some thoughts, I'm not an expert on Trash Can, if anyone has thoughts on this - or please correct me if I'm wrong!!! :)

-jim
 
Some, um, personal thoughts, even though wightstraker noted "if comfortable" (translation: you got the skills)...

Bearing mind this forum is for "Mac Basics and Help" which means we've got newbies galore, the "f" parameter means "forced" remove, i.e. the user will not be prompted to confirm. I humbly suggest NOT using "f" be it you're "comfortable" or not! :eek:

Note the "r" means recursive, so you'll also blow away entire directories/sub-directories too instead of one file! heh

Now there are ways of recovery even after that (not including Time Machine which requires a working OS) but before doing so take your computer offline immediately, don't install anything, you better not defrag and be prepared for a world of hurt potentionally learning to use tools that literally examine/recover data on your hard disk one byte at a time. :mad:

Summary:

A little knowledge is a very dangerous thing in the hands of newbies, wightstraker! No offense to anyone reading this, of course. Like I said, just some personal thoughts. I know it might seem obvious but some users might type that in, without changing into proper directory first, be at root or home level and well... poof.

Lah dee dah.

-jim
 
SrWebDeveloper said:
Some, um, personal thoughts, even though wightstraker noted "if comfortable" (translation: you got the skills)...

Bearing mind this forum is for "Mac Basics and Help" which means we've got newbies galore, the "f" parameter means "forced" remove, i.e. the user will not be prompted to confirm. I humbly suggest NOT using "f" be it you're "comfortable" or not! :eek:

Note the "r" means recursive, so you'll also blow away entire directories too instead of one file! heh

Now there are ways of recovery even after that (not including Time Machine which requires a working OS) but before doing so take your computer offline immediately, don't install anything, you better not defrag and be prepared for a world of hurt potentionally learning to use tools that literally examine/recover data on your hard disk one byte at a time. :mad:

Summary:

A little knowledge is a very dangerous thing in the hands of newbies, wightstraker! No offense to anyone reading this, of course. Like I said, just some personal thoughts.

Lah dee dah.

-jim
Click to expand...


Point taken, Jim, I forgot this was a newbie forum. Don't play with rm -rf unless you're sure what you're doing.

Still, it's the only consistently successful way I've deleted tenacious files in OS X.
 
Well thanks guys, I will try this when I get home from trip. I am not new to Macs, however it is odd what things will baffle you huh? :confused:
 
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