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Trash won't empty from External Hard Drive

Hello,

I had a folder on my external hard drive that i wanted to delete. it had about 10,000+ items in it, about 40 GB. I moved it to the trash, emptied the trash, and then my computer crashed and told me i had to hold down the power button.

When i logged in to my computer again i tried to empty the trash, but there was nothing in there, the folder i tried to delete was not visible, and i can't press the empty trash button because there is nothing to delete. the folder is no longer visible on my eternal hard drive, and it is not visible in the trash. Where the heck is it?

So i kept my ext hard drive plugged in, created a text edit document on my desktop, moved it to the trash, and it was visible in the trash so now i can press empty trash. The empty trash status bar appeared and said 0 items remaining but just stayed at half way, the trash wouldn't empty. I saw Locum in activity monitor was using about 99 percent cpu, so i left my macbook pro like this for a couple of days, but the trash would still not empty.

Also, if i move anyhting else from the ext drive into trash, it just dissapears and is not visible. My ext hard drive has only a few gigs of space left and i need to free up some space from it but i can't.

Can someone please help me?

Thanks

Ps. I'm not a very technical person

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Jul 30, 2013 6:07 AM

32 replies

WZZZ

Level 6

13,226 points

Jul 31, 2013 2:55 PM in response to ListenToSkrillex

I'm putting this back in Baltwo's court. Looks like when you attempted what I suggested, you got the whole shooting works for your user--or I don't know what. Whatever it is it isn't what we wanted.

baltwo

Level 9

62,362 points

Jul 31, 2013 5:17 PM in response to ListenToSkrillex

Then, try this and at the Password: prompt, carefully type in your admin password, aince nothing shows up on the screen, and hit the
Enter key::

sudo ls -al /Volumes/"Seagate Backup Plus Drive"/.Trashes/

baltwo

Level 9

62,362 points

Jul 31, 2013 5:22 PM in response to WZZZ

WZZZ wrote:

Looks like when you attempted what I suggested, you got the whole shooting works for your user--or I don't know what.

It's just the root-level listing for the ext HD. Mostly movies and some broken items, such as:

ls: The Breakfast Club (1985): Input/output error

ls: The Jerk [1979].avi: Input/output error

Aug 1, 2013 12:38 AM in response to baltwo

Hi baltwo, I got this:

Last login: Thu Aug 1 08:29:49 on console

Farrukh-Sheikhs-MacBook-Pro:~ farrukhsheikh$ sudo ls -al /Volumes/"Seagate Backup Plus Drive"/.Trashes/

Password:

ls: 501: Input/output error

total 16

d-wx-wx-wt@ 1 _unknown _unknown 189 Jul 26 23:15 .

drwxrwxrwx@ 1 _unknown _unknown 3213 Jul 31 14:41 ..

Farrukh-Sheikhs-MacBook-Pro:~ farrukhsheikh$

nbar

Level 5

7,019 points

Aug 1, 2013 1:08 AM in response to ListenToSkrillex

I/O error...

1) Your drive is failing

2) File system is corrupted

The former is more likely based on reading through this thread. Use disk utility to check.

baltwo

Level 9

62,362 points

Aug 1, 2013 11:44 AM in response to ListenToSkrillex

Step one is to verify/repair the disk with Disk Utility. If there are errors that it can't repair, then use another uitility, such as DiskWarrior, to check it out. If unable to check it out, then your options are to copy what you can to another disk and erase and reformat the borked one. That might map out any bad blocks and make the HD usable again. BTW, Trashes on that volume is empty, so don't know why there appears to be something in it. You might do a google search for ghost files in trash and see what pops up.

Aug 1, 2013 4:30 PM in response to baltwo

I tried to verify/repair in disk utility and it said Error: Could not unmount disk

I don't know what that means, i'll try diskwarrior too.

Actually when i open trash from the dock there's nothing in there. and when i delete a file from the ext hd, it's no longer visible in the ext hd, but isn't visible in the trash either.

Ghost files didn't really help too much, but thanks anyways.

BTW I still have warranty on this ext Seagate HD, do you think they may have a solution? However, I think you're a better expert than anyone out there though, you really seem to know your stuff 🙂

baltwo

Level 9

62,362 points

Aug 1, 2013 5:26 PM in response to ListenToSkrillex

DU needs to unmount the disk to repair it. Try verify and see what pops up.

Don't know about being smarter than anyone else, but thanks for the kind words. As for Seagate, if the HD's under warranty and can't be repaired, you might get a replacement; however, before doing that, step one is to try other utilities, step two, if unrepairable, copy all the data, step thres is erase & rerformat the HD. using the zero out the data security option, and only then contacting Seagate if the HD can't be restored.

nbar

Level 5

7,019 points

Aug 1, 2013 7:52 PM in response to ListenToSkrillex

Still sticking with my first assessment: the drive is failing. Follow baltwo's instructions. Best of luck.

Aug 2, 2013 1:26 AM in response to baltwo

Hi baltwo, I tried verifying it and DU said:

Verifying volume “Seagate Backup Plus Drive”

Error: Could not unmount disk

Is there no way it can be fixed? Do you think I should follow your next steps, to copy the data and then erase and reformat the ext hd?

baltwo

Level 9

62,362 points

Aug 2, 2013 12:07 PM in response to ListenToSkrillex

If you've rebooted and that still occurs, then try a safe boot (restart holding down the SHIFT key) and run DU. If it still fails to unmount, then you'll need to do that, unless you have a 3rd-party utility to try with.

Aug 6, 2013 3:35 PM in response to baltwo

Thanks for all your help. That didn't work either.

But it all worked out, I got lucky.

I went to the store I bought the drive from and they couldn't find any solution so they gave me another drive and I got to keep the old one! The old drive was only movies and I can still copy and open them!

Thanks baltwo, thanks everyone

baltwo

Level 9

62,362 points

Aug 6, 2013 5:19 PM in response to ListenToSkrillex

Aug 6, 2013 6:02 PM in response to baltwo

OH MY GOD.

I tried the safe boot again, i must have let go of the shift key too early the first time i tried. I started DU and pressed repair disk again, and all the files i sent to the trash and were no longer visible, they were all found by DU! It put them in a folder called found.000 on my ext drive! YES.

baltwo, you are a miracle. 🙂

baltwo

Level 9

62,362 points

Aug 6, 2013 6:27 PM in response to ListenToSkrillex

As before.

Trash won't empty from External Hard Drive