Secure Empty Trash hangs

Unmounting the external Time Machine Drive or not, Time Machine on or of or anything else I have tried make no difference whatsoever. When my trash is apparently empty and I put one item in, then select secure empty trash there are ALWAYS 6 items in there that never get deleted and my Finder becomes unresponsive until I have to force quite it.

Interestingly enough, there are also 6 items that report errors every single time when I run a Permissions Repair with Disk Utility... any connection there maybe?

Don't know if somebody already mentioned it. The workaround is to relaunch the finder (alt-option-escape, go to finder and relaunch).
Cheers.

I used your workaround and after the finder relaunched, my trash was empty. Do you know if the finder did the Secure Empty of the trash or just did an Empty Trash?
I realized that if you are using Time Machine, the file you do a Secure Empty Trash on may still be on your Time Machine backup. I started using disk utility to create a secure disk to store anything I don't want read by others.

Please note: Secure Empty Trash will keep your files from data recovery software but will not protect you in the event of a real investigation. See here http://rixstep.com/2/20030314,00.shtml

Additional information.
From unix man pages:
unix srm NOTES:

The -s option overrides the -m option, if both are present. If neither
is specified, the 35-pass Gutmann algorithm is used.

Development and discussion of srm is carried out at <http://source-
forge.net/project/?group_id=3297>, which is also accessible via
<http://srm.sourceforge.net>.

krazytekn0 wrote:
Please note: Secure Empty Trash will keep your files from data recovery software but will not protect you in the event of a real investigation. See here http://rixstep.com/2/20030314,00.shtml

Krazytekn0:

I read the security hoax article, and it does speak rather interestingly about the DoD or NSA type wipes, but what is most interesting is that Disk Utility already comes with Dr. Guttman type secure erase built into it for all Leopard users to leverage for free!

It secure erases free space, and it can secure erase an entire drive as well, so why would this product even get purchased?


V/R,

Stuart

Stuart, hey thanks for the correction, I had no idea disk utility had Guttman algorithm, that's good to hear. (that'll show me to do my homework)

You know, I'm looking at Disk utility right now, and I'm not finding anything in regards to this though... it looks like it just does a 35 pass zero out, which is still not that useful when going up against hardware recovery systems... What am I missing? I must be getting pretty dense lately if I can't find this.

I also wasn't insinuating that you need to purchase this, I just feel that article is a good source for the info on the Guttman method.
Message was edited by: krazytekn0

Message was edited by: krazytekn0

Ok I see it in the srm docs... nevermind me, just going nuts over here (I have a one year old son therefore I'm working at about 35% of my normal brain power)

krazytekn0 wrote:
Ok I see it in the srm docs... nevermind me, just going nuts over here (I have a one year old son therefore I'm working at about 35% of my normal brain power)

Hey, my niece is 3, I hear you on the little one...good excuse..really! 🙂

That said, follows hereupon a technical article published by Apple, which does seem to speak with a marked level of specificity to the manners by which their secure erase in fact operates and functions when used against DASD.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303462

Secondly, I would imagine that most people are not interested in thwarting the assertion of a hardware threat against their DASD, but merely the ability for the average DASD scavenging technician to not see deleted data easily, or to not worry about selling a DASD to a friend or customer after it was used once or twice for some other purpose.

I have read that some of today's DASD are not even really served by using Dr. Gutmann's CONOPS, but in general I feel better after having run the 35-Pass Dr. Gutmann technique two or three times before reusing the DASD.

Lastly, one friend of mine (whom is an EE type back in Maryland) said that if you could somehow upset the servo motor control information on a DASD, you would for all intents and purposes render the DASD useless for being reviewed with any type of software on an average PC, Mac, or other Unix Workstation other than Mac.

I hope your family has a wonderful and blessed holiday season.


Stuart

A question arising about secure deleting, as mentioned here


http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303462

Can anyone confirm that while doing the secure delete Disk Utility itself uses up a TON of HD space?

I was playing with this feature last night and, on returning to the MacBook after about 2 hours discovered that approx. 80 gig of HD space had 'disappeared' and I was left with <300 k of available space. Yike!

After quitting and restarting I discovered the 'Recovered Items' folder in the Trash. This folder contained a disk image which was almost equivalent to the amount of HD space that I had lost. Emptying the Trash of course recovered all that space.

Having trouble emptying the trash securely.

Trash hangs when trying to empty securely, but not regular.

Ran Repair Disk Permissions by using Disk Utility Found in the Utilities Folder.

Restarted.

Trash Emptied Securely without a problem

I ran "Repair Disk Permissions", and received several Warnings. eg: 2008-01-01 19:53:19 -0600: Warning: SUID file "System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/OwnerGroupTool" has been modified and will not be repaired.
2008-01-01 19:53:22 -0600: Warning: SUID file "System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAg ent" has been modified and will not be repaired.
2008-01-01 19:54:28 -0600: Permissions repair complete
I did a "Restarted"; then tried to "Secure Empty Trash", and "Finder" hung. I find the only way to "Secure Empty Trash" is to eject my external drive (which in my case is the one I use for Time Machine) then, "Secure Empty Trash" and use "Disk Utility" to remount the drive.
Does anyone else find this to be true?

Dear Sir:

Indeed the quote that follows hereupon is certainly a red herring, and not the real issue, as every time I eject my external HD, secure empty trash works flawlessly.

Clearly (in my view) between the inability to format an external drive with Disk Utility, and the problems with secure empty trash when a USB drive is plugged in, there seems to be quite a real chance that the USB driver is severely bugulant!

However, I do point out that there is a work around that I have tested many times that allows you to keep your external drive plugged in!

1) Enter a terminal prompt
2) cd to the current user's ".Trash" folder
3) type in "srm -mrfvz *"

This will only blow away trash for the current user, but it does allow you to keep your external plugged in though.

Stuart

Mandrin M. wrote:
I ran "Repair Disk Permissions", and received several Warnings. eg: 2008-01-01 19:53:19 -0600: Warning: SUID file "System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/OwnerGroupTool" has been modified and will not be repaired.
2008-01-01 19:53:22 -0600: Warning: SUID file "System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAg ent" has been modified and will not be repaired.
2008-01-01 19:54:28 -0600: Permissions repair complete
I did a "Restarted"; then tried to "Secure Empty Trash", and "Finder" hung. I find the only way to "Secure Empty Trash" is to eject my external drive (which in my case is the one I use for Time Machine) then, "Secure Empty Trash" and use "Disk Utility" to remount the drive.
Does anyone else find this to be true?

Same problem here: Secure trash always hangs with 4 items remaining. I noticed it almost straight away after upgrading from Tiger to Leopard. Unlike others here I have not yet activated Time Machine so perhaps this isn't the cause.

I do remember interrupting a secure trash delete at one point, and since then I think it has struggled to delete the files.

I'm really surprised that this issue is a few months old now and Apple has not released a fix.