Strange trouble deleting trash from external drive...

Hi all!

My system: Still OSX 10.4.11 PPC 15" pre-intel notebook.

Problem: Using a LaCie external for backup. Also backing up a Windows machine on a LaCie partition made for cross-system "Exchange."

On the LaCie, deleted the previous Windows machine backup to make room for the next. However, there's no room until you clear the trash. So on attempting to clear the trash of 90,000-plus files, OSX stops at hundreds of files -- possibly tens of thousands! -- and says, "The operation cannot be completed because the item 'FILENAME' is locked." This is due to some kind of artifact from Windows file properties, which OSX is respecting.

The only choices OSX provides are "Stop" (canceling the whole process so that Trash remains uncleared) or "Continue." If you click "Continue," it immediately hits the next 'locked' file and again waits for your response. In other words, I might have to click "Continue" tens of thousands of times just to delete the files considered 'unlocked,' and I will still be stuck with the 'locked' ones forever.

So I tried Get Info to see if there is an option to 'unlock' everything. Or even one file. Nope. I have no idea what else to try.

If anyone knows how to get around this, how to 'unlock' all the files that are ALREADY in the trash or how to make OSX otherwise clear the trash off this LaCie, please let me know here and I will be very grateful!

Best,

Nicholas_NYC

.

Aha! I seem to have found the answer - a command via Terminal that undoes locking.

Complete instructions here:
You can't empty the Trash or move a file to the Trash

We shouldn't have to dig into the command-line level for this kind of stuff. I suppose they're trying to protect people from deleting OS system files and the like, but those are already protected from being trashed in the first place. More to the point, the kind of users who would accidentally delete system files are likely the kind of users who aren't poking around unlocking stuff and who will be inconvenienced by hiding how these things are done, as I have been.

Anyway, problem solved.