Computer stalling between transfers & emptying trash

I'm trying to organize my external hard drives by moving data around. If I copy too many GB's at a time the transfer, not the computer, freezes. No matter how long I leave it there, it will just stall a X amount of data transferred & won't move. Now I'm trying to transfer small amounts at a time, but when I'm done copying from one location to the new one, I send the old one to the trash, but now there's too much data in my trash can, that I try & empty it and it stops as well, or most of the time, never gets out of the preparing to delete phase. And if I try to stop the process, it gets stuck on stopping, won't let me restart the computer & I have to manually turn it off & back on. And some of the large folders in the trash don't give me the put back option so I can try & do smaller amounts at a time. And I know cutting & pasting from one location to another might be easier, but I don't trust it with these problems. And when I try to get the folder info, to make sure the old & new locations are the same size so I can delete the old one, it takes forever, if at all just to calculate the size of the folder. It's also sometimes been getting stuck on the little rainbow colored wheel at times, where it moves, I can move the folders that are open, but can't do anything else. I'm more used to PC's, so I don't think that if something moves it's freezing, but perhaps that IS freezing for a Mac? If anyone has any info on how to fix this I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks
-Kevin

Hummm...
ConcordRd wrote:
Hey Dennis,
Appriciate the advice, but no, they have both only ever been used on my Mac Mini & I ran the Mac Install driver on both hard drives. I'm aware of the different formats as I've tried connecting hard drives from my PC before. And though they show up, it didn't let me move anything on or off. My problem is, though I'm able to successfully copy the files/folders from one external drive to another, if I try to do too many GBs at once it gets stuck & doesn't finish, or sometimes even start the process.
1. Sorry, what is "Mac Install drive" do you mean Disk Utility or something else?
2. What exactly is the Partition Map Scheme (MS-DOS, Apple or GUID) and Format (FAT-32, or Mac OS Extended) of those drives?
3. What if any messages are you getting, when you try to copy or empty trash?
ConcordRd wrote:
I've actually copied everything I need to for now, my bigger problem is that I can't empty the trash. I'm assuming it's a related problem though, that it's trying to delete too much at once. And like I said, I've tried the 'Put Back' option, to delete smaller amounts at a time(just as I've had to with transfers), but it doesn't list that as an option on a couple of the biggest folders. Any other ideas on what could be causing or how to fix the problem?
For Trash problems, have a look at the following:
> You can't empty the Trash or move a file to the Trash
> Solving Trash Problems

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Message was edited by: doxa

The first and easiest thing I'd try would be the Trash itself.
Go to /Applications /Utilities/Terminal and launch it.
At the prompt, copy and paste this commandsudo rm -rf ~/.TrashPress Return.
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Enter it and press Return.
Log out and back in or restart.
Let us know.
-mj

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[email protected]

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http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3366422
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[email protected]

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Kappy,
Here is yet another stupid question. How do I "Unstuff the archive"? I am not even sure I know what the archive is... A little bit of knowledge on a computer, can be, indeed, a danger!
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I know that I'm kinda late to the game, but I just updated the OS on my MacBook Pro (2.16GHz Intel Core Duo) to 10.6.8 and then updated Aperture to 3.2.4. After updating both, I've been having a really strange problem where I can't empty the Aperture trash. Literally nothing happens when I try to. I don't even get the empty trash dialog box. There doesn't seem to be any other problems. I've tried fixing the permissions, rebuilding the database & restarting the computer, but nothing seems to work. Has anyone encountered this problem, or have any advice for fixing it? Any help would be GREATLY APPRECIATED!
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Empty Trash is S-L-O-W.

Can anyone explain and/or help me with this problem? I am running my iPhoto library on a 2TB, w/Firewire 800, external HD attached to my Mac Mini. I have updated my OS to the latest version and am running the latest version of iPhoto 09. (With all the yelling I hear about iPhoto 11, there is no way I am going to try that!) I am combining several Libraries into one which is why I bought a huge eHD.
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Any idea how this can be speeded up?
FYI: Once this is completed, I am going to ditch iPhoto and have already purchased a copy of Aperture. Most of my work is done in RAW.
BTW: I just got my Apple TV working the the rec room and it is WONDERFUL to see the pictures on the big TV. Very cool.
Thanks. Maury

The problem is solved. I tried to run some more pictures and this time when it finished, I was left with a beach ball (NOT spinning) instead of my arrow pointer. What the ****? Could not make it go away but it did work for clicking. So I decided to RESTART and when the computer came back to life, the pointer had returned. So I loaded up another 120 images to trash. But now the trash was gone in just a few minutes. WOW. So I loaded 250. Again, gone is just a few minutes. WAZOO. This time I loaded up 650 pictures. Again gone in just a few minutes. GREAT.
But I still do not get a progress bar, just the pulsating OK buttton which going still when I press it.
I don't have any idea what was wrong or what fixed it. But RESTART did the trick.
Thsi problem is solved.
Maury

Emptying trash isn't freeing up any space on MacBook Pro or external drive. Time Machine is OFF.

Yesterday, while using Final Cut Pro X, I noticed the program/my computer was starting to run slow--and then I was totally caught off guard by a warning that my startup disk was full. I checked Storage and Finder and both my MacBook Pro and external drive had less than 1gb of space each! I usually use Secure Empty Trash and have no problems...but for my drives to be full, it clearly hasn't been working for a few days, possibly weeks.
I'm using a MacBook Pro (early 2011) and a LaCie Thunderbolt external drive. I'm running Mavericks (10.9.2)
I am not using Time Machine. When I look at Storage under About This Mac, my Backups on my MBP and LaCie drive are both at zero KB.
I read through the forums and tried going into Terminal and entering sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash ...but all that did was free up about 10gb on my external drive (I'd emptied upwards of 90gb from my trash).
Right now I'm basically stuck with a slow laptop and very little storage space, which has slowed my work to a halt. Does anyone know how to fix this?

Some space suggestions.
Disk Space - Free Up
Disk Space – Free Up (2)
Disk Space Filling Up – OmniDiskSweeper
Disk Space Filling Up - WhatSize

Computer stalling between transfers & emptying trash

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