6 replies to this topic

[manuleka]

I deleted a VM folder (which has contents in it) and are all in Trash, but when i try empting it, System wouldn't let me.
I get the following Errors:

Error while deleting
There was an Error while deleting VirtualBox VMs
Detail:
Failed to delete the item from the trash

i have tried running Nautilus as root but i can't get to Trash

help please...

[yordan]

What is that VM folder? Is it a Virtual Machine?
Is that virtual machine down?
Seems that a process is using that folder, so the smart way is to stop this process, or tell this process not to use this file.
The desperate way is the standard Unix method : boot in Single User Mode, remove that bolder, and then boot again in multi-user mode.

[manuleka]

it's a folder not being used by any process... was an old VM (on VirtualBox)... i copied it over to backup data partition prior installing Mint 11 but now decided i won't need it... so i sent it to Trash and emptied it, then lateron i came to Trash and the folder's still sitting there... weird!

i'll try single user logon and see if that will fix it...

[yordan]

i'll try single user logon and see if that will fix it...

It's not a "single user logon", it's a single-user boot.
You change the default mode from multi-user to single-user in /etc/inittab and reboot.
Or you login as root on the console (not on the graphic thing) and you type "init S"
And when you see "single User mode" you type "who -r" to check that you are still in single-user mode.
And then you type killall
this will kill everything except the ascii console (fortunately you are on the ascii console)
And then rm -rf /something/yourthing.

These are standard unix administration tasks, and a lot of Windows users have to learn this again.

[manuleka]

what's weird is that the folder isn't in the ~/.local/share/trash or ~/.local/share/trash/files

i trashed some other files and folders and when i browse to the above locations as administrator the VM folder doesn't seem to exist there although it's displayed on Trash when i viewed normally

[yordan]

Look at the name of a file in that folder.
Then, as root, issue :

find / -name "thatfilename" -print

And you will see where this file really is.

[manuleka]

Look at the name of a file in that folder.
Then, as root, issue :

And you will see where this file really is.

ah huh getting somewhere now, thanks yordan sir

it was stored in the .Trash folder of the drive that i deleted the VM backup from