Deleting Files

Hmm. I have a 150GB external HD that I put some files onto, then dragged them into the trash on my Mac, then added more files and so on. Basically backing up, deleting it all then backing up again.

Eventually I got a message telling me the external HD was full,(even though I had dragged it's entire contents to the trash) and I had to connect it to a PC to actually delete everything that was on it to free up the space again.

Question is: How do I really delete stuff from portable drives to stop them filling up? This has happened on a memory stick as well.

Thanks

You will need to empty the trash before disconnecting the drive. If you did that, then there may be other issues

You need to empty the trash to really delete the files off the external HDD.

Blah Dyns beat me to it.

Aagh. I can't believe it was so simple. Ah well, at least I can sleep now. Thanks guys.

You may also want to use the disk utility in applications to reformat your thumb drive. I originally had difficulty when using thumb drives and deleting data on different computers. Couldn't go back and empty trash. Had to use the disk utility to get the memory back.