Secure Empty Thrash on external disk problem

If I try to use "Secure Empty Thrash" on an external disk, after a few (1-3) items are thrashed (sometimes even none), the Finder sticks, nothing more happens and, as usual, clicking on "Stop emptying thrash" on the bar does nothing either, so that I finally have to do "Force Quit" on the Finder. This is clearly not good...

1. Yes, apologies. For thrash read trash throughout. Dumping the com.apple.finder.plist file seems to have worked to some extent, or at least helped. What is now happening is that files (whether on hard drive or external) take much longer to trash securely than they did under Tiger, even when they are completely empty. Interestingly, when securely trashing single files of any kind or size, and even empty folders, the Finder appears to think it is dealing with 10 items in each case - at least, that is what appears on the bar. I would still like to know what is going on.
2. I have discovered the source of the mysterious folders - apparently it's related to the Epson TWAIN plug-in for Photoshop CS and CS2 (see http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20070215095449325)

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External disk problem with AVI files

Hi
I do have Premiere elements 7 installed on a Sony Vaio laptop with Vista.
I have just rendered (DV camera to AVI files) some 20 tapes to my external disk (usb and fire wire connection) and everyuthing worked perfect.
A week later Premiere complains that I have not the correct codec installed.
However AVI files stored on my laptop still works.
Someone that has a clue about this?
Second problem.
When renering the DV camera to AVI files directly to the laptop the dates works fine.
When i copy them to an external disk, the dates are replaced with todays date and I can not anymore see the shooting date.

Hi,
Thanks, the forum seems to be a good knowledgebase. And thanks for your fast reply.
The thing is that I have a external disk with firewire and USB input.
However the laptop has only one firewire connection, so when rendering I use the laptop firewire for my Sony DCR-TRV33E and connects the external disk with USB.
When I create my videos, I connect the external disk with firewire.
However the problem is the same even if I try with USB or Firewire.
BUT last week it worked with both?????
//Per

External Disk Problems - Serious

Dear Apple,
10.4.3, eMac latest, 512MB.
external USB2 drive, freshly formatted, extended non-journaled
Problem. Doing anything with the disk Finder-wise (like getting info on large folder) while copying something large (32Gb folder) to the external disk hangs the finder for good. This is 100% reproducible behavior. I assume this has something to do with Apple's USB driver or Finder.
PLEASE FIX IT BEFORE WE SUE YOU.

Thaks for suggestions. Here is what I know:
a) disk is external 160Gb, formated with Apple utilities, extended HFS+ single partition.
b) the disk is mass produced, sold by Frys, manufacturer claims they never heard of this, their suggestions (go single port not ext hub, bad port, bad cable) did not pan out. They are 100% the problem isn't theirs.
c) there is no trace of anything in any log except when I pull the plug on that drive.
d) there is no report of anything similar on the web.
e) again the problem is, in the middle of file copy the transfer stops, the drive indicates (light) that is stuck writing. After some 10 sec the drive goes back to normal mode and the system loses ability to communicate with the drive. Finder hangs. That happens with 100% reproducibility but at very variable point in transfer (1M to 1G). Puling the USB cable immediately un-hangs the Finder.
f) I did try using cp, same problem, also running from safe boot mode (extension disabled), no difference.
Short of buying another drive and computer to try to mail the culprit I see nothing else to try except blaming Apple simply because I agree external USB silicon is extremely unlikely to have a problem synching communications with the mac.
Mac OS X (10.4.2)

Time for Secure Empty Trash and Free Disk Space

Hi Forum,
Can anyone give me a guesstimate of how long secure empty trash would take or can take? I have 290 items and its been there for about an hour.
Also, if I choose to free disk space, how long approximately would this take? Is it worth doing this? I have 40gb "free" now.
Thanks.
S

it's not necessarily the number of files, but more the total size of all the files combined. But lets just say it dose take a while to do. you really only need to use secure empty trash on files of a sensitive nature. Such as financial information (credit card numbers, back information, social security numbers)
Also by spending all that time writing to the hard drive, over and over. Witch is what secure empty trash dose. your reducing the life span of your hard drive. Like car tires your hard drive is only good for so many miles.
I ones secure emptied trash on a GB worth of data. I remember it takings hours. I ones tried scrubbing a whole hard drive, after two days I stopped it because I didn't realize it was going to take so long. That being said it doesn't take too long to scrub a few files that are a few MB in size.

Secure Empty Trash vs Empty Trash, Hangs and Advanced Finder Pref.

I've had my intel-based iMac for a couple of weeks and I've been getting a frequent hanging trash problem that causes me to restart my Mac far too often. Restarting the iMac fixes it but I don't know what the problem is to begin with. It seems to happen when I have over 10MB in the trash and I choose "Secure Empty Trash."
While I'm on the topic of "Secure Empty Trash," won't "Empty Trash" do the same thing SECURELY since I've previously checked it off in my Finder Preferences? Is the "double selection" of secure empty trash part of the problem (i.e. selecting it when I go to empty the trash as well as having it selected in my finder preferences)? Any and all help is appreciated.

Yes it's the same if you choose Secure Empty Trash from the Finder or if you have it selected in the Finder advanced preferences. The thing is electing to Secure Empty the trash may take a lot longer to empty because it does either a 7 pass or 35 pass write over the files and that can take a long time to do for large files.
As a test it took me just over 3 minutes to Secure Empty a 175MB file.
Something you should do though seeing as you've had to forcefully shut down your iMac a few times is Run Disk Utilities. Open up Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility select your hard drive on the left and under the First Aid tab click on Repair Disk Permissions then Verify Disk.
George

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.

I am trying to do a full Time Machine Backup to a new external disk. The backup starts, and it says "Time remaining about 4 days." That seems like a very long time, but the real problem is that the computer "logs off" after a few hours, and the b.u. stops

I am trying to do a full Time Machine Backup to a new external disk. The backup starts, and it says "Time remaining about 4 days." That seems like a very long time, but the real problem is that the computer "logs off" after a few hours, and the backup stops. The system preferences are set to "Never" for Computer sleep and Display sleep. The computer does not ordinarily log off automatically, but it has done this twice since I started the Time Machine backup.

If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Enter the word "Starting" (without the quotes) in the String Matching text field. You should now see log messages with the words "Starting * backup," where * represents any of the words "automatic," "manual," or "standard." Note the timestamp of the last such message. Clear the text field and scroll back in the log to that time. Select the messages timestamped from then until the end of the backup, or the end of the log if that's not clear. Copy them (command-C) to the Clipboard. Paste (command-V) into a reply to this message.
If all you see are messages that contain the word "Starting," you didn't clear the search box.
If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don't post many repetitions of the same message.
When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Some personal information, such as the names of your files, may be included — anonymize before posting.

Does Secure Empty Trash Accomplish the same task as Running disk util to wipe free space

Does using the secure empty trash option accomplish the same task as running disk util to eliminate free space from old deleted files? I'm currently running the 7 pass deal on my late '12 iMac. Says its gonna take 7 hrs. Can I use safari or iTunes while the Big Mac works its magic?

Does using the secure empty trash option accomplish the same task as
running disk util to eliminate free space from old deleted files?
No.
Finder > Empty Trash just tells the file system that those areas on the drive are now available for overwriting with new data. Data deleted off hard drives can be recovered if this method is used before it's overwritten with new data with special software.
Finder > Secure Empty Trash runs a 7x pass military approved overwrite only on the deleted files in the Trash, works for hard drives only.
Disk Utility > Erase Free Space creates a huge file that takes the remaining free space on the volume selected and either writes zeros or 7x pass, then confirms it and then removes the file. Takes a long time to complete, do not interrupt.
This can be used if one forgets to use Secure Empty Trash or wants to scrub caches or other files that don't necessarily go to the Trash for user deletion, such as program files that self delete and download cache files etc.
Only works for hard drives and there is no recovery possible for nearly all users. Those with special expensive magnetic equipment can possibly recover data off a zero pass, but not off a 7x overwrite.
The zero erase free space can be also be used to pre-eliminate potential unknown bad sectors on hard drives before wanted data is written to them, thus preventing future issues with data retention on hard drives.
Disk Utility > Erase - (not moving the slider) will erase all data on the volume or partition selected, including wanted data. It just tells the file system the deleted data is ready for overwriting. Thus can be recovered using special software before it's overwritten on hard drives only.
Disk Utility > Erase w/Security Option - (or moving the slider from the left) will secure erase all data on the volume or partition selected, including wanted data.
It can vary on the operating system version used from zero pass, to 3x overwrite, to 7x overwrite to 35x overwrite (old version for days past of smaller drives, don't use on newer larger drives as it will take weeks to finish.)
Secure erase methods are used to secure erase private data off of hard drives only, doesn't work for SSDs.
For secure data deletion off a SSD or any flash media, it's NSA advised to grind it into a fine powder.
How do I securely delete data from the machine?

Does secure empty trash save disk space?

Secure empty trash takes so much longer than just emptying the trash. Is secure empty trash just used to prevent files from being recovered, or does it actually save disk space on the iMac?

I am aware that everyone said that it doesn't save any disk space, because I read through the thread.
HOWEVER.
I had gotten down to 500 mb of disk space and was going crazy trying to delete photos and movies.
Finally I read about the secure delete, tried it. It took 24 hours, and then i hat 36 free gigabites.
THIRTY SIX GIGS OF MEMORY THAT I DIDNT HAVE BEFORE.
Only thing is I have no idea why, because everyone else says that it doesnt clear space.

How can I save the images and movies on a external Disk from iphoto program, to protect the images when problems occur in the laptop,

How can I save the images and movies on a external Disk from iphoto program, to protect the images when problems occur in the laptop,

Most Simple Back Up:
Drag the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to another Disk. This will make a copy on that disk.
Slightly more complex: Use an app that will do incremental back ups. This is a very good way to work. The first time you run the back up the app will make a complete copy of the Library. Thereafter it will update the back up with the changes you have made. That makes subsequent back ups much faster. Many of these apps also have scheduling capabilities: So set it up and it will do the back up automatically.
Example of such apps: Chronosync - but there are many others. Search on MacUpdate or the App Store
If you want to back up the Photos only:
Export them using the File -> Export command.
This User Tip
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4921
has details of the options in the Export dialogue.

Major External USB Disk problem

I noticed today that an external drive I have had connected to my MacBook Pro for several months seemed to have no data on it. While showing no files or folders in the Finder view, it showed that only 222GB or so was still free though the drive is a 500GB unit. In Disk Utility it does show the additiona 243GB or so as "Used".
I have tried running Verify Disk and got a message saying
"First Aid Failed / Disk Utility stopped verifying "VMG 001" because the following error was encountered / File System verify or repair failed"
I then tried Repair Disk and got this message:
"Verify and Repair volume "VMG 001" / The disk "VMG 001" could not be unmounted"
I then tried Erasing the drive (to restore from my Time Machine backup on a Time Capsule) but I can't do that either. Finally, when I try to eject the drive to unplug it I get a message saying it could not be ejected and I should "Try quitting applications and try again"
Neddless to say that I've tried that and it still won't eject.
Do I have a virus, a major disk problem or a combination of the two. ANd is there a way to recover the drive or am I going to have to get another drive. If I do, and I give it the sam volume name will I be able to recover my data with Time Machine?
Thanks for any help you can offer.
- Vikas

One possibility is that if you regularly drag lareg numbers of files to it, Spotlight is constantly trying to catch up with what you deleted and what you brought over.
I drag 10GB to a LaCie once or twice a month and it does take a few hours to stop rattling.

Problems connecting external disk to my Thomson router

When i connect my external disk to my Thomson router the Mountain Lion can't access to it inside my home wireless network. With the app muCommander i can access it by writing the IP address but in Finder i can't access it. Any ideas?

I apologize if this is answered elsewhere, but I
could not navigate through to the right thread.
I've just bought a Maxtor One Touch III for Macintosh
(500gb). Having connected it to my Airport Extreme I
can see the disk in Disk Utility.
[portions omitted] .
What am I doing wrong? Please help
I am using the 750GB Maxton OneTouch III with the extreme software 7.1 with absolutely no problem. This is one of the drives that actually gets recognized even after power down - power up.

'Secure Empty Trash' quits unexpectedly with external harddrive

I am running mavericks on a MacBook Pro, and removing old back-ups from an external harddrive, in order to make room for newer, time-machine backups.
After deleting an old back up, I am choosing to 'Secure Empty Trash', to clear out that space.
It started out with 650K plus items to delete and after a few days now, I'm down to 180K items.
But the system keeps quitting, and won't allow it to finish these final items.
I do get the question, "some items are locked, do you want to delete them" and I've tried choosing both yes, and no, and each time the process never gets started, just quits.
I'd like to get this drive cleared for more space.
Any suggestions on how to make it continue?
Thank you,

This was very helpful, thank you. With holding down the option key, I was able to get very far.
Now it's stuck again at 59K items left to delete. Holding down the option key is not making a difference.
The directions for working under the terminal system aren't very clear to understand.
Any other suggestions?
thank you so much.

Problem with secure empty trash

I'm having trouble to secure empty trash. So basically I have a hard drive plugged in and because the space is getting really little I wanted to empty the trash so that I would have more space in the hard drive. But everytime I'm in the middle of the process it is never done because "The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have permission to access some of the items.". I tried to go to the disk utility to change the permission but the option is unavailable. Can someone please help me out? There's only 16GB left in my hard drive and I really need more space since it's storing too much trash right now. Thanks!
p.s. my hard drive is 320 GB spectra flash.

Please see my other post of the same nature.
Thanks to Hypen, WMP is GONE GONE GONE

Yosemite: problem with external disk

Hello,
After installing Yosemite I cannot use Time Machine anymore because the external disk (WD My Passport Edge) cannot be mounted. Does someone know what to do? Thanks in advance for your help.
The Disk Utility Program shows the external disk however none of the action button is active.

See mount section at the end.
Disk Unmount Using Terminal
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Secure Empty Thrash on external disk problem

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