Hi, Question about secure empty trash. I moved some Time Machine backup files to the trash from an external hard drive. Now I can't secure empty trash. It starts, finds 74,003 files, and does nothing. The external hard drive shows it's empty, but it isn't

I moved some time machine backup files from an external USB hard drive to the trash. Tried secure empty trash. It counts 74,003 items, then just sits there. The external hard drive window shows it's empty, but the info pane says it only has 50G of memory left. I left the secure empty trash on over night. It did nothing. Ideas?
Thanks,
Ron

Relaunch the Finder, then from the Finder menu bar, select
Finder ▹ Preferences ▹ Advanced
and uncheck the box marked Empty Trash securely. Try again to empty the Trash.

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I moved some time machine back-ups to the trash and I cannot move or delete them?

I was trying to make room in my Time Machine back-up disk and I moved some files to the trash. Now I cannot delete or move them. What can I do?

The answer depends on exactly what you did to delete the files.
In general, it is not advisable to delete Time Machine backups using the Finder. Time Machine works in conjunction with Spotlight to organize Time Machine backups. Deleting files required Spotlight to work overtime, and it is possible that this action corrupted its database.
If this happened, it is fixable.
Read the following, courtesy of Apple Support Communities contributor Pondini:
http://pondini.org/TM/12.html
Scroll down to the grey box for a potential fix.

I am using an external drive for a time machine backup. It has disappeared from the desktop. How do I get it back again?

My time machine backup disc, which has been working ok for a couple of years has suddenly disappeared from the desktop. The time machine program tels me it is unavailable. I have checked that the drive is working by booting up in Windows. and Windows can see it and read it ok. What has gone wrong, and how can I fix it?
I have tried unplugging it and reconnecting, but it is still apparently not seen by the system.
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Has anyone any ideas?

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I have an iMac that has been using an external drive for Time Machine (TM) backups since 2013, so there is a lot of history in the backups. I now have a Mac Mini running OS X Server, and would like to transfer the drive to the Mac Mini, but continue to use the drive as the backup disk, that is, doing TM backups via the TM service on the server. However, if I simply stop TM on the iMac, disconnect the drive, connect it to the Mac Mini, tell OS X Server to use the drive as a backup disk, and tell TM on the iMac to use the Server TM service, it seems that a new backup file is started, rather than continuing to use the old one (symptom: when I enter TM on the iMac, I don't see any of the previous incremental backups).
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What you are attempting is complex, and I am not certain whether it would be successful. I recommend you buy a new drive and start a new backup today, and set the old drive aside.
I have a somewhat different view of the benefits of what you are calling "History". I think that History just adds complexity to the Backup structure that makes it LESS likely you will be able to do a Restore. And Backups are only as good as their ability to do a proper Restore.
Copies of the currently-present files is all that Time Machine promises to keep -- older files that have been removed from the current source are not necessarily maintained on the Backup. In my opinion, a fresh, clean Backup from today is more likely to be able to Restore the things you need most -- without any error messages.
The most requested Restores are things Users broke or discarded today or yesterday, and those will be readily available tomorrow and going forward. In the event you need some really old copies of something, you can try to get them off the old Backup drive you set aside today.

'iphoto will open as soon as the iphoto library is available. Time machine might be backing it up" - message been cycling for hours now. Can't access anything in photos

Up till yesterday, our iphoto was working correctly. At one point, I noticed the slideshow wasn't displaying, so I opened iphoto and the message said there was a newer version, so I selected upgrade. The next message said the library needs rebuilding. Selected rebuild. Next,
I got the message in the header, and it's been cycling for hours now with no result. I'm not computer friendly, so I could use some help.

Thanks for the reply.
I was wrong - the OS is 10.6.8. Is that old, too? I don't know where to find the version of iphoto I had and which one is trying to upgrade. Where would I find that. I restarted and still the same message.
"Your photo library will not be readable by previous versions of iPhoto after the upgrade. The upgrade process for very large libraries may take an hour or more to complete." selected upgrade:
"iphoto is unable to open this library. The library has issues that require rebuilding. The iphoto library is missing required database files and must be rebuilt before it can be opened" selected rebuild:
Next message is: "waiting for iphoto library...will open as soon as library is available. Time machine might be backing it up" and cycling.....
During this time, the iphoto file is unavailable, all options greyed out.
I have an external hard drive connected and time machine is on.
Like I said, not literate with computers, so I hope I'm giving the right information

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Most likely a RAM issue.
How many beeps?
Click here > Power On Self-Test Beep Definition - Part 2
1 beep = no RAM installed
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Yes, you will lose files on old backups. You'll be starting fresh with new backups.
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Full Details Here from Pondini....
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rtilghman wrote:
telling me to buy a new router is NOT a solution.
And why not? Apple is selling these things like BigMacs. They can't make enough of them. You've been suffering since May because you refuse to get a decent router.
Can you imagine if a company that makes a refrigerator told me that I needed to upgrade my electrical system to rectify a problem with their device? What kind of response IS that?!?!
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A1 in here http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Also look at the other info.. C12 C17 are common issues.

I threw out 24 time machine backups from an external hard drive into my desktop trash and now I can't empty my trash.

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Since you didn't mention what type of error message you were seeing, I'm going to guess on what is happening.
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Tom

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Hi, Question about secure empty trash. I moved some Time Machine backup files to the trash from an external hard drive. Now I can't secure empty trash. It starts, finds 74,003 files, and does nothing. The external hard drive shows it's empty, but it isn't

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