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Mac-the-Naif

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 1, 2015
1
0
I can't get rid of 3 files.

They are all 8-10 years old from a ZIP Drive disk I copied to my 2012 Mac-Mini [El Capitan: 10.11.1 (15B42)]. They are in the Trash now nested in folders (2-4 each). The whole mess is in one 86kb folder with 15 nested items (mostly empty folders).

The 3 files all have "nul" in their names. I get a "-50" error message when I try to delete them. I can't change their names to remove the "nul" because they are in the Trash. And I can't move them out of the Trash because, well, Apple likes to drive me loopy by creating closed option loops (computer Hotel Californias that I can never leave/resolve).

I tried trashing via Terminal (using scripts I found online), but got mostly "Directory not empty" and one "Invalid argument" responses.

Worst case: if I can't remove them will it hurt my computer (everything else seems to work fine)?
 
Worst case: if I can't remove them will it hurt my computer (everything else seems to work fine)?

Let's just dump the files Mac! You know that we all want them gone. ;)

I suggest that you should try the solutions in this thread. Can't Delete Trash- Items Locked

I personally like reboot and try again followed by Option-clicking Empty Trash but most of the advice in the linked thread looks solid. Apparently the classic Repair Permissions fix is now obsolete in El Capitan (according to other threads).
 
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