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Is there any way I can take it out? I can't drag it out! I need help, I can only eject them but is it safe? And for some reason I also have 2 copies of it...?
MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.4)
You may have to learn how to use single user or command line methods to
gain access to permissions and privileges, so you can correctly re-move
the hard disk drive (or change the alleged location, if only a permissions error.)
Not sure how you were able to move the drive anywhere. Some of the evidence
may be symbiotic links or aliases only; if so then you'd only need to remove those.
Sorry I've not managed to create that issue in any of my Macs (dozens) so don't
know the best suggestion to resolve such a situation. Perhaps Linc Davis will?
Good luck ! 🙂
Oh don't worry now, somehow force ejecting both and restarting my computer got both of these "Macintosh HD" files out of the trash
Glad to hear you were successful through a restart to get the computer back to normal.
Sometimes a start up in 'Safe mode' where you could repair disk permissions, then restart
could help an odd issue, where the permissions and privileges may have been mixed up...
If the items in the trash were symbiotic links (such as icons in the Dock) they would have
appeared to be the Macintosh HD, but the Disk Utility could have shown you otherwise.
Such copies or aliases may appear to be disc images that may be ejected. Been awhile
since I had that kind of ghost in the machine; wasn't the real file and wasn't a real copy.
The actual 'Macintosh HD' is a partition on the hard drive, so your copy was likely a link or
an equivalent of an alias pointing to the actual partition. The OS X Recovery's Disk Utility
version probably could have checked+repaired the error; or Safe mode + repair permission.
A curious situation and question; thank you for posting...! 🙂
Glad you got is sorted out.
As you are seeing, the Trash is actually an abstraction used in several different ways for for several different purposes. It can get even more complicated if you have multiple drives attached, or use Network-shared drives.
The user-friendly MacOS will not let you discard the running Boot Drive.
And a Restart fixes a world of difficult situations, especially surrounding stubborn files and the Trash.
I accidentally placed my Macintosh HD to the trash can!
