"Flies are in use" error while trying to trash - help?

Question

Hello!
I have 2 old Macs - a PowerMac G4 that's on it's last legs, and an old PowerBook 5300cs!
Well, as the G4 is wearing out, and the Powerbook's floppy drive is dead, I wanted to make sure all of the files are saved.
So, Today I booted the G4 into FireWire target disk mode, and coppied THE ENTIRE HARD DRIVE onto my external USB drive. (only 4.8 GB, wow)
It seemed that I had copied some of it before - a couple of folders - and so I trashed them as well.
Then, I had a great idea - the old Powerbook was previously completely isolated from the rest of our macs, but the PC card ports work! So, I took a SD memory card adapter (which is a PC card), with a 1 Gig SD card, and dragged the Mac Hard Drive over to it. After nearly 2 hours, all 520 meg (the entire hard drive) was on the SD card.
Then, I copied the files from the SD card to my Powerbook's Desktop. I burned them to a CD, and trashed the folder. (I also made a back up copy on said USB HDD) Then I tried to empty the trash.
It deleted almost all of the files - besides half a dozen files that "are in use"
Exact Error:
"The operation cannot be completed because the item "(insert item name here)" is in use."
It's the same for all of the following - just change (insert item name here) to the names below.
The 5 from the Powerbook (OS 8) are extensions:
Apple Built-In Ethernet
Apple Ethernet CS
Apple Ethernet LC
Apple Ethernet NB
Apple Token Ring NB
The one from the G4 (OS 9.1) is:
localized.rsrc (I believe it was from the "Palm" folder in Applications)
It won't let me erase them, despite the fact that they're from old computers, old OS(es), and shouldn't be in use by anything.
So:
1. How do I tell what is using them?
2. How do I make OS X think they're not in use, and OK to erase?
Thanks,
Dan
15" 1.67 Powerbook G4 (non-HiRes), Slot loading iMac DV SE   Mac OS X (10.4.7)   1G RAM on PB, 384 MB iMac.

Answer 1

Okay, well it's the next time.
I was trashing some old backup folders that I didn't need (Not the ones mentioned in my last post), and trashed them. It failed. Inside the trash, was a folder named "Palm Desktop". I must have made anothe copy by accident.
Inside the Palm Desktop folder was "localized.rsrc", and two packages, both with their own "localized.rsrc" files inside English.lproj folders. So, I renamed two of them localized1.rsrc and localized2.rsrc, and draged them out of their folders and onto the first layer of the Trash (ie - just in the trash, not inside a folder inside the trash). Now, I draged them to the desktop. (planning to rename them to .rtf immediately afterwards). However, that same error I listed last time occured - where the finder crashed for a second. Last time, however, it occured when I tried to open the Localized.rtf file, not when I tried to remove it from the trash.
I rebooted. Now, the files Localized.rsrc files where on the desktop, -AND- in the trash. So, I renamed the ones on the desktop localized.rtf (and localized1 and localized2), and overwrote them. I trashed them, and Emptied the trash. It trashed the three from the desktop ok, but it wouldn't trash the original files. I renamed them .rtf, so now I have Localized(1,2).rtf in the trash.
I reboot. I drag them out, and they are -STILL- both inside and outside the trash. I repeat the overwrite-with-blank-rtf-documents-and-trash method, and reboot. Now, I make new blank text files in text edit - named Localized.rtf, Localized1.rtf, and Localized2.rtf. I drag them to the trash - it simply puts them into the trash - so now I have 2 of each file. I trash it, it deletes the empty files.
I still have the original 3. On a hunch, I remove the "Missing Sync Monitor" login item from my user account, reboot, and drag them to the desktop. Same finder crash error. I reboot again - and now i have 1 Localized.rtf file, and TWO of both Localized1.rtf and Localized2.rtf files. So, they are all sitting there in the trash, unable to go away.
Now what?
There must be a better way, one that doesn't require renaming the files, or risking the finder crashing. A terminal method perhaps?
Any thoughts welcome,
Dan