Hard drive accessibility via Mac / .trash files created in external drives

Joined
Dec 25, 2008
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
Malaysia
Your Mac's Specs
Intel-based Macbook ver. 10.4
I've searched many threads here and still can't find someone with the exact problem as me. (Or the description wasn't quite as exact)

Anyhow, I have several problems and I've listed them below:

1.) My external hard drive that I've used previously with my PC before switching to my Mac is only readable to my Mac but not writable. Do I need to reformat my entire hard drive or is there some setting I can tweak? And if I need to reformat it, do I use my Mac to reformat or my PC? I'd like it to be both readable and writable with any Mac and PC.

2.) I've got 3 pendrives out of which the first two were used on my PC before buying the Mac and the last one was first used on my Mac. When I inject them into my Mac to transfer / delete files and then inject them into my PC, the PC will show hidden files on my pendrives with the extension ".trash" which are all just duplicates of the files I have transferred into the pendrives. They take up the same space (as the original files) even after deleting the originals and cannot be seen or deleted from my Mac.

I've read from other websites that these .trash files are created by my Mac when ejecting the pendrives. I used to use an application (I think it was "FinderCleaner") that worked really well but it is no longer usable or downloadable after several months.

I've also tried deleting the original files from my pendrive and then right-clicking on my trash can with the drive window open and click "Empty Trash". It frees up some space (not all) but the .trash files are still there when I check with my PC.

Is there some way I can delete the .trash files with my Mac instead of having to use my PC every time? Or do I also need to reformat them with my Mac? Would they be read- and writable on my PC after reformating too?

And would there also be .trash files on my external hard drive once it is writable?

Thanks a lot in advance for anyone's reply. I really appreciate it because this problem is quite a... well, problem for me.
 
Joined
May 13, 2008
Messages
506
Reaction score
10
Points
18
Location
Edmonton, AB
Your Mac's Specs
Unibody MacBook 2.4GHz/4GB Ram/320GB HD
1) Macs can only READ NTFS drives, they can no write to them. In order to make your external HD read/writable by OSX, you'll need to format it as FAT32 instead of NTFS.

2) If you delete filed on a USB drive, OSX places them in the trash, and these trash files are how it keeps track of them. If you empty the trash before ejecting the media, you shouldn't see them on there. If you eject the media before deleting the trash, those files will remain.
 
Joined
Jun 25, 2005
Messages
3,231
Reaction score
112
Points
63
Location
On the road
Your Mac's Specs
2011 MBP, i7, 16GB RAM, MBP 2.16Ghz Core Duo, 2GB ram, Dual 867Mhz MDD, 1.75GB ram, ATI 9800 Pro vid
Joined
Jun 25, 2005
Messages
3,231
Reaction score
112
Points
63
Location
On the road
Your Mac's Specs
2011 MBP, i7, 16GB RAM, MBP 2.16Ghz Core Duo, 2GB ram, Dual 867Mhz MDD, 1.75GB ram, ATI 9800 Pro vid
Emptying the trash before ejecting the pen drives should delete the files contained in the trash folder. You shouldn't worry that the trash folder still exists, since it should now be empty. The space being used by an empty trash is zero. The actual folder name is contained in the directory area which has some dedicated space even if you have no files on the drive.
 
OP
L
Joined
Dec 25, 2008
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
Malaysia
Your Mac's Specs
Intel-based Macbook ver. 10.4
Thanks for all your help, Khris and xstep.

If I format my hard drive from NTFS to FAT32, then there will still be the .trash files being created on the FAT32 HD, right? I think I might have found a solution to this though, if it is true. :) Read at the end.

But the NTFS-3G, though interesting, sounds unreliable. I think I'm not going to risk that. Thanks though, xstep. :)

Macdrive also sounds good too. But if I had to transfer files to other random Windows users such as college mates or etc, then I'd have to get them to install that. :p

I've just recently found some other websites/forums that suggest other ways:

Deleting "hidden" files from USB flash drive

Quote:

Mixed Computing: Stop Thumbs.db and .DS_Store files from Polluting Network Shares

"Prevent the creation of .DS_Store files on Network volumes in MacOS:

1.) Open the Terminal application from the Utilities folder which is nested in the Applications folder
2.) In the newly opened terminal type (all on one line) defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true
3.) Restart the computer for the change to take effect"


I haven't restarted my Mac yet so I don't know if this is fully functional. Will edit when I've done it. :)


"In particular, this article mentions BlueHarvest which can:
- Stop the creation of ".DS_Store" files.
- Automatically remove Resource forks ("dot underscore" files)"
- Automatically remove hidden folders such as ".Trashes" (from removable disks)
- Provide simple drag and drop folder and volume cleaning." -Brains


This program sounds promising. And it's cheaper than the other solutions. I'm thinking of trying out the trial of this one first. If it fails, I'll try out the other ways mentioned. :)
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top