Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Can't Delete Files in Trash after SSD install

R

Rontro809

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 16, 2018
8
0
I have recently added an SSD External drive to my Mac Mini (Late 2014). I connected the drive via ThunderBolt II. I used Carbon-Copy to move the OS and data to the drive. I then renamed it and changed the system start-up disk using System Preferences. I moved a lot of the large data files to the Internal drive and renamed the system folders to avoid any confusion. I noticed that the SSD was running a bit warm, so even bought a small fan for it and it is now running quiet and cool. Everything went surprisingly well. The speed increase was impressive and I only had to deal with some minor setting issues. At first Google Drive was confused, but after resetting that it worked perfectly as well.

I left the internal drive alone until now. I decided to delete the old system files rather than reformat the drive. I have some 500 GBs in stored video and audio files. I moved the old system files into the trash and ran the delete option. It mostly worked fine, except it left some folders behind. The error message said that these folders "Libary" and "Del3" is in use. I have tried to reboot, put them back, and other suggestions I found here at MacRumors. But these files are stuck in the trash.

Any Ideas?

-Ron
 
BLUEDOG314 said:
Always be careful, but the good ole 'sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash/*' should do the trick.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily,
system protection prevents deleting some of the system files and it is pretty much impossible to delete them for user with any privileges. In the two cases where I had these problems I ended up reformatting the drive. I tried even as super root using all command line tricks I could find, gave up after few hours of trying. Reformat and restore was simply faster and easier.
Side note: same happens today with Windows, some system files are so protected, that they simply cannot be deleted with whatever credentials you can get as human. Interestingly, these are really weird files, not the ones one would expect.
 
Honza1 said:
Not necessarily,
system protection prevents deleting some of the system files and it is pretty much impossible to delete them for user with any privileges. In the two cases where I had these problems I ended up reformatting the drive. I tried even as super root using all command line tricks I could find, gave up after few hours of trying. Reformat and restore was simply faster and easier.
Side note: same happens today with Windows, some system files are so protected, that they simply cannot be deleted with whatever credentials you can get as human. Interestingly, these are really weird files, not the ones one would expect.
Click to expand...


You can turn off System Integrity Protection
 
OP, try this:

1. Boot from your EXTERNAL drive (as you're doing now).
2. Get to the desktop
3. Click the icon of the INTERNAL drive ONE time to select it
4. Type "command-i" to bring up "get info"
5. At the bottom, there's a lock icon -- click it and enter your administrative password
6. In "sharing and permissions", put a checkmark into "ignore ownership on this volume"
7. Close get info
8. Try deleting whatever you wish from the internal drive now.

Any change?
 
Fishrrman said:
OP, try this:

1. Boot from your EXTERNAL drive (as you're doing now).
2. Get to the desktop
3. Click the icon of the INTERNAL drive ONE time to select it
4. Type "command-i" to bring up "get info"
5. At the bottom, there's a lock icon -- click it and enter your administrative password
6. In "sharing and permissions", put a checkmark into "ignore ownership on this volume"
7. Close get info
8. Try deleting whatever you wish from the internal drive now.

Any change?
Click to expand...

I did exactly what you said and sadly the files remain in the trash bin.
-Ron
 
casperes1996 said:
Did you ever try the lsof command to see what macOS thinks is using the files?
Click to expand...

No. I was going to ask how to do that? Is that a Terminal Command? What is the format? I tried in the terminal and it said it was not a valid command.
 
Rontro809 said:
No. I was going to ask how to do that? Is that a Terminal Command? What is the format? I tried in the terminal and it said it was not a valid command.
Click to expand...


Syntax is

"lsof"
outputs list of open file descriptors with processes

"lsof [process ID]"
Outputs a list of open file descriptors belonging to that process ID

And the one you want

"lsof [file path]"
Lists processes accessing this file


I've attached a screenshot of the head of its man-p Screen Shot 2018-03-20 at 5.23.48 PM.png age.
 
Rontro809 said:
I have recently added an SSD External drive to my Mac Mini (Late 2014). I connected the drive via ThunderBolt II. I used Carbon-Copy to move the OS and data to the drive. I then renamed it and changed the system start-up disk using System Preferences. I moved a lot of the large data files to the Internal drive and renamed the system folders to avoid any confusion. I noticed that the SSD was running a bit warm, so even bought a small fan for it and it is now running quiet and cool. Everything went surprisingly well. The speed increase was impressive and I only had to deal with some minor setting issues. At first Google Drive was confused, but after resetting that it worked perfectly as well.

I left the internal drive alone until now. I decided to delete the old system files rather than reformat the drive. I have some 500 GBs in stored video and audio files. I moved the old system files into the trash and ran the delete option. It mostly worked fine, except it left some folders behind. The error message said that these folders "Libary" and "Del3" is in use. I have tried to reboot, put them back, and other suggestions I found here at MacRumors. But these files are stuck in the trash.

Any Ideas?

-Ron
Click to expand...

Which enclosure?
 
eugenios said:
Which enclosure?
Click to expand...

Monster Digital Overdrive Thunderbolt 240 GB

-Ron
[doublepost=1521650370][/doublepost]ISOF didn't report anything. It appears that these are empty folders and have no files in them that I can find.

Screen Shot 2018-03-21 at 9.34.30 AM.png
 
Last edited:
Maybe try this, a modification of a previous suggestion

in a Terminal window type
sudo rm -rf
(there is a space after the "rf")
now click on the trashcan icon to open the Trash folder, next drag & drop the file to be deleted into the Terminal window to complete the command and press enter.
Enter your password and cross your fingers.;)

This system has always worked for me.
 
I have tried everything listed in this thread and these empty folders won't go away. If I go in and use the delete immediately command they actually disappear and then come back on their own. I created a new account on the computer and the new trash can is working fine with nothing in it. I am left with two options as far as I can tell:

Option 1: Migrate over to the new account and when everything is working, delete the old one.

Option 2: Copy the files on the internal hard drive and reformat it. I don't have an external drive with enough space on it so this would have to wait for a bit.

What do you think?
[doublepost=1521822286][/doublepost]
jbarley said:
Maybe try this, a modification of a previous suggestion

in a Terminal window type
sudo rm -rf
(there is a space after the "rf")
now click on the trashcan icon to open the Trash folder, next drag & drop the file to be deleted into the Terminal window to complete the command and press enter.
Enter your password and cross your fingers.;)

This system has always worked for me.
Click to expand...

OM This worked! I didn't see this until now. I have no idea why, but this did the trick all of the files are gone and things have returned to normal.

Thank you for all the support guys!

-Ron
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back