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Cannot Empty Trash Error code 8003

I have read previous posts that tell me to Put Back the Time Machine backups I had Trashed from my external drive. It does nothing. When I choose Put Back nothing happens & the backup does not go back.
Any ideas how I can get my trash emptied?
Thnx

27" IMac, Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Mar 6, 2011 10:37 PM

Reply
6 replies

Mar 7, 2011 1:06 PM in response to Howker

If you have not solved your trash issue you could try this,

1. Shut the Mac off

Wait 30 seconds hold down the left shift button.
2. 
Restart the Mac with your right hand.
When you hear the chime, let go of the shift key.

3. Allow Mac to boot up completely. 
You will have to sign in again.
4. 
As the Mac boots up, your presets will be gone. 
Do not worry. 
Wait till it boots up again.
5. 

When it has booted, delete the trash.

6.All files in the trash should now be gone.


7. Shut the Mac off.

8. Wait another 30 seconds to restart the Mac normally this time.

9. Your presets should be present.

10. Put something in the trash that you do not want and Trash it.
You should now find all is working normally.

I have never had this problem so no guarantees, but worked on a friends Mac running OS 10.6.1.

Mar 8, 2011 2:12 PM in response to oldscribe

Thnx oldscribe for replying. Since nothing on the support forums solved my problem I phoned Apple Support. For others who will experience problems with Trash this is what happened.
I installed a new external drive & configured Time Machine to backup to it.
I had daisy chained my 'old' external drive so it was still connected.
I decided to just drag to the Trash the backups that were on my 'old' external drive.
Trash would not Empty under any circumstances.
Eventually going up thru 3 levels of Apple Support an engineer suggested competely disconnecting my 'old' external drive, then Emptying Trash on iMac.
It WORKED !
Interesting too he suggested not trying to Trash old backups. In my case could reformat the external drive so thats what I did.
I will not list the varies things that the first 2 engineers tried but it was everything except disconnect the external drive. We tried Put Back, the sudo commands in terminal, new user set up, making sure all file in Trash are unlocked. You name it they tried it.
Time Machine is a great idea. Trash is not as robust as it could be. The 2 together spell trouble!

Mar 10, 2011 4:03 PM in response to Howker

Time Machine is a great idea. Trash is not as robust as it could be. The 2 together spell trouble!


There's nothing whatsoever wrong with the trash, but deleting old TM backups in the Finder, using the Finder's trash, is simply a disaster. (The reason is that there are lots of funky permissions and other weird stuff going on in a TM backup, which makes those files difficult for the Finder to deal with.) Of course, you shouldn't be doing that in the first place, as you've discovered... but Apple does need to make this harder to do. You can send this suggestion to Apple using the [Apple feedback page|http://www.apple.com/feedback>.

Nov 12, 2011 8:22 AM in response to herestenbucks

Go into terminal and type sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash/ then enter, then it will ask for your password type in and click enter. Then your trash should be empty.


This worked for me - I was finally able to empty my Trash. Now everytime I drap something into the Trash - it asks to delete the item immediately. Should I leave the setting this way?


Message was edited by: DrTruck

Cannot Empty Trash Error code 8003

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