Changed backup drive - Deleting old taking forever!

I probably made a mistake in throwing all the Time Machine backups from an external drive into the trash to delete it all, I got an error. So next, I moved the items from the trash to a folder on the desktop and after 10 hours it is still getting ready to move items and is up to over twenty million items!
Reason I am trying to delete is I got a new Mac and much larger HD so moved backup to a new larger external HD. The old abandoned Time Machine backups are no longer needed and I wanted to clear the disk space.
Is it normal to take 'Days' to delete the items from an old Time Machine backup?
TIA,
Ken

Kenneth Nielsen wrote:
I probably made a mistake in throwing all the Time Machine backups from an external drive into the trash to delete it all, I got an error.
Indeed. Apple doesn't do a very good job of warning folks: +*Never, ever, change, move, or delete anything in your backups via the Finder or Terminal.+* That can corrupt them, not to mention cause the kinds of problems you're seeing.
So next, I moved the items from the trash to a folder on the desktop and after 10 hours it is still getting ready to move items and is up to over twenty million items!
Also a mistake. Cancel it.
Reason I am trying to delete is I got a new Mac and much larger HD so moved backup to a new larger external HD.
How did you do that, and are you sure the copied backups are ok?
The old abandoned Time Machine backups are no longer needed and I wanted to clear the disk space.
Is it normal to take 'Days' to delete the items from an old Time Machine backup?
That way, yes. Once you're sure you don't need them, just erase the disk. It will take a few seconds at most. If you're not sure how, see #1 or #2 in [Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/DU.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of the +Using Snow Leopard+ forum).

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Digijohn wrote:
So I decided it was time to get a larger system drive. After I finished migrating to the new drive,
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Changed backup drive - Deleting old taking forever!

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