can't delete file from external hard drive

I know what you mean but this is not the case, I wasn't clear enough then 🙂 So: I even didn't get to the emptying because when I clicked on "move to trash" it asked me for the password, which I am sure I typed correctly and then as if nothing happend at all, the folder was still in the Finder and trash was still empty - no action took place in other words..

Thanx for such qucik reply!!! The pages were great, it had an answer for my problem, but unfortunately it also involved me dealing with it only on the MacIntosh HD itself, not on mounted external drive I suppose... So it didn't work 😟 they say that there is an icon in the left corner indicating locked folder - I don't see any icon on it. It says you can untick the box to unlock the folder - there is no tick to be unticked. Finally, they say that if I don't have permition or rights I cannot delete it. But how do i change permittion which already says that i can read and write in it? So everything appears to be normal only I cannot delete it. there is not even any warnig telling me I don't have enough rights, it just requires the password and after me typing it in it makes the sound of scraping paper but does nothing more. I aslo had some problems with emptying Trash after being seemingly succesful with one file and had got so far to have them appear in the Trash (no clue how this one actully got there though..) I followd the advice and emptied the Trash with Terminal. The Folder is still there but it shows 0 Kb... So far so good BUT: It is still on the external drive, so I obviously only managed to copy it into the Trash!!! Phew, innit a bit too tight to poor owners, this macbook?? I want my rights back! 🙂

So I followed both yours and their instructions but it was all over the same. I did the deleting process using Terminal but it didn't do any difference. It actually told me (after pressing retourn to delete the same folder I couldn't delete before) that "it is a directory" which wasn't first very helpful couse I really don't understand computers themselves, I am an ordinary user but don't know much when it comes to commands in Terminal... but then I went back to the external driver and tried to delete one file in this folder at a time and it worked. But it took rather a long time couse there were a lot of them... When I chose them all and wanted to delete them it didn't work either, so this manual process was the only way. And there are still some folders which are empty at last but can't be deleted themselves... What exactly is responsible for that? I managed to make free space at last, but it is really confusing having there empty foldres which can't be deleted.. Do you know why this happens? Otherwise thank you for your time and tips!

Yes, I am afraid there is no other way! I tried everything and deleting these things using someone elses computer with windows seems to be the only way. I can't formate it now - I must back it up first, but I'll do it the first thing after that.
Thanx!

Thanx for help with the commands and references!