How do I recover external drive folders put in the trash using another comp

Question

Using a different computer than my own, I moved folders from an external firewire disk to the trash - but did not empty the trash. I'm now using the external disk with my own computer and would like to permanently delete those files (e.g. empty the trash). However, I cannot view those folders in the trash on my own computer. It is not convenient for me to take my external drive back to the other computer. Without being able to empty those folders from the trash, I cannot recover that space (40Gig) occupied by those folder on the external hard drive.
Is there a way to "empty trash" those files so that I can recover that disk space.
Powerbook G4   Mac OS X (10.4.6)  
Powerbook G4   Mac OS X (10.4.6)  

Answer 1

Hi, barleycor. Welcome to the Discussions.
Here are the detailed instructions you need to remove the files trashed when the FireWire drive was connected to another computer.
The Trash on a FireWire drive is actually in a series of folders within the hidden and invisible directory:
/Volumes/partition_name/.Trashes
where partition_name is the name of the partition or volume on the FireWire drive on which the files were trashed. If the FireWire drive is a single partition, then partition_name is the same as the name of the FireWire drive.
Within that directory is a subdirectory for each user on that trashed files while using the FireWire drive. Each user-specific subdirectory's name is the NetInfo uid (user ID) number of the user.
We will use Terminal (located in your Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities folder) to find the files and empty the Trash.
First, Launch Terminal by double-clicking its icon in your Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities folder.
We can see all of the Trash-related subdirectories on the FireWire partition in question, including their contents, using the following Terminal command:
sudo -alhR "/Volumes/partition_name/.Trashes"
It must be typed exactly as written after the Terminal prompt (% in the following examples), save you must substitute the correct value for partition_name in the command. Note that Terminal commands are case-sensitive.
After typing the command, again substituting the correct value for partition_name, you press Return and type your Admin password when prompted. You should see a listing like the following when I look at the .Trashes folder on the Spare partition of one of my FireWire drives:
% sudo ls -alhR "/Volumes/Spare/.Trashes"
Password:
total 0
d-wx-wx-wx 3 unknown unknown 102B Apr 22 05:25 .
drwxrwxrwx 31 unknown unknown 1K Apr 25 04:02 ..
drwx------ 4 unknown unknown 136B Apr 25 04:02 501
/Volumes/Spare/.Trashes/501:
total 33664
drwx------ 4 unknown unknown 136B Apr 25 04:02 .
d-wx-wx-wx 3 unknown unknown 102B Apr 22 05:25 ..
-rw------- 1 unknown unknown 6K Apr 25 04:01 .DS_Store
-rw-r--r-- 1 unknown unknown 16M Nov 14 15:44 Test.fp7
The first line highlighted in yellow above is the only user-specific subdirectory within the /Volumes/partition_name/.Trashes directory. That subdirectory's name is 501 .
The block of lines highlighted in yellow lists the contents of the Trash on that FireWire volume for the user whose NetInfo uid is 501, generally the first user defined on the Mac. We can see that this directory contains the file
Test.fp7
that I moved to the Trash on that volume (it's shown in the last line in the block of yellow lines above).
You would use the same process to find the 5xx directory containing the files you moved to the Trash when the FireWire drive was connected to a different computer.
To empty the Trash for the user whose NetInfo uid is 501 on the Spare volume, I would type the following command:
sudo rm -ri "/Volumes/Spare/.Trashes/501/"
press Return, then type my Admin password if prompted. This would then prompt me to confirm if I wanted to remove every file in the 501 trash subdirectory including the subdirectory itself. I would respond y for "yes" to every question except the last, to which I would respond n for "no." Here's what that looks like in Terminal:
% sudo rm -ri "/Volumes/Spare/.Trashes/501/"
Password:
examine files in directory /Volumes/Spare/.Trashes/501/? y
remove /Volumes/Spare/.Trashes/501//.DS_Store? y
remove /Volumes/Spare/.Trashes/501//Test.fp7? y
remove /Volumes/Spare/.Trashes/501/? n
I've highlighted my y and n responses in green and red, respectively, so you can distinguish them from the prompts. I respond n to the last question as I want to keep the 501 subdirectory.
So, once you've found the 5xx subdirectory containing the files you trashed when the FireWire drive was connected to the other computer, you'd use the command:
sudo rm -ri "/Volumes/partition_name/.Trashes/5xx/"
substituting the correct values for partition_name and 5xx, and typing y for "yes" in response to each prompt except the last prompt, e.g.
remove /Volumes/partition_name/.Trashes/5xx/?
to which you would respond n for "no." The files trashed when the FireWire drive was connected to the other Mac are now gone from the FireWire drive.
When completed, you end your Terminal session as follows:
1. At the Terminal prompt, type: exit
2. Press Return.
3. Quit (Command-Q) Terminal.
Good luck!
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X