anyone kno wwhat error code -8003 is?

Had your friend moved some Time Machine backups to the trash? If so, that's a problem (and has likely corrupted the backups, too).

If so, try emptying the trash while holding down the Option key.

If that doesn't help, Open the Terminal app (in your Applications/Utilities folder). Be *very careful* with this app. It's a direct link into UNIX, the underpinnings of OSX, but without the protections of OSX.

In Terminal, the prompt looks like this: user-xxxxxx:~ <your name>$

(where <your name> is your short user name). It's followed by a non-blinking block cursor.

Type the following exactly as shown, placing the name of your Time Machine partition between the quotes, and be sure to place spaces where shown:

cd /Volumes/"Time Machine Backups"/

and press Return. The prompt should then change to include the name of your Time Machine drive. Then copy or type:

sudo rm -rf .Trashes

and press Return. It should then ask for your Admin password (which won't be displayed). Press Return.

If there were many items involved, this may take quite a long time. Unless there are problems, once the deletion is complete, you'll see another prompt (there's no completion message).

http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/trash.html for starters. If nothing there works, peruse the hits from a google search for *error 8003 mac*.

problem is this solution does NOT apply to 10.6

Yes, it does. They haven't updated that page since 10.5, but it still applies.

BTW, I note you haven't replied to Pondini regarding the Time Machine issue. Is this drive a Time Machine backup? If so, have you looked at that information?