Force Deletion Of A Stubborn Folder

Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
I need help deleting a folder placed on my hard drive when I installed Hard Disk Tool Kit PE from the disc that came with the latest Mac World Magazine (Digital Hub Special Edition). It installed the Disk Tool Kit PE folder onto my hard drive and will not allow me to move it to Trash. When I right click it I don't even see the Move To Trash option. I'm sure there's a way to nuke that folder, I just don't know how. I've tried the more obvious things like ensuring that Ownership & Permissions are set to me. But it still won't work. Please help with this.



P.S. I was able to delete everything inside the folder, just not the folder itself, and there was no uninstall option.



Thanks A Bunch,

Brian Green

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    willoughbywilloughby Posts: 1,457member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Brian Green

    I need help deleting a folder placed on my hard drive when I installed Hard Disk Tool Kit PE from the disc that came with the latest Mac World Magazine (Digital Hub Special Edition). It installed the Disk Tool Kit PE folder onto my hard drive and will not allow me to move it to Trash. When I right click it I don't even see the Move To Trash option. I'm sure there's a way to nuke that folder, I just don't know how. I've tried the more obvious things like ensuring that Ownership & Permissions are set to me. But it still won't work. Please help with this.



    P.S. I was able to delete everything inside the folder, just not the folder itself, and there was no uninstall option.



    Thanks A Bunch,

    Brian Green






    open up the terminal and type



    sudo rmdir



    and then hit the space bar,



    then drag the folder to the open terminal window and it will paste the path to that folder after the "sudo rmdir"



    hit enter and you'll be prompted for your password. Type it in and hit enter....folder should be deleted.
  • Reply 2 of 5
    Willoughby, here's what happened.



    Last login: Mon Apr 7 12:13:25 on console

    Welcome to Darwin!

    [Brian-Greens-Computer:~] briangre% sudo rmdir /Hard\\ Disk\\ ToolKit??PE?

    [Brian-Greens-Computer:~] briangre% sudo rmdir /Hard\\ Disk\\ ToolKit?PE?

    Password:

    rmdir: /Hard Disk ToolKit?PE?: No such file or directory

    [Brian-Greens-Computer:~] briangre%





    It says there that no such file or directory exists. Well the folder is there and rather visible, so I'm not sure why it's being so stubborn. I even restarted in hope that restarting might help in some way. It didn't.
  • Reply 3 of 5
    willoughbywilloughby Posts: 1,457member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Brian Green

    Willoughby, here's what happened.



    Last login: Mon Apr 7 12:13:25 on console

    Welcome to Darwin!

    [Brian-Greens-Computer:~] briangre% sudo rmdir /Hard\\ Disk\\ ToolKit??PE?

    [Brian-Greens-Computer:~] briangre% sudo rmdir /Hard\\ Disk\\ ToolKit?PE?

    Password:

    rmdir: /Hard Disk ToolKit?PE?: No such file or directory

    [Brian-Greens-Computer:~] briangre%





    It says there that no such file or directory exists. Well the folder is there and rather visible, so I'm not sure why it's being so stubborn. I even restarted in hope that restarting might help in some way. It didn't.




    Looks like there's some weird characters in the folder name or something...hmmm



    Try this:



    sudo rmdir /Hard\\ Disk\\ ToolKit*



    As long as thats the only Folder with "Toolkit" in its name you should be ok using that command. But I'm not sure if that will work either.



    See if that works. If not, are you able to copy stuff TO the directory?
  • Reply 4 of 5
    Willoughby



    This is what happened this time.



    Last login: Mon Apr 7 12:16:41 on ttyp1

    Welcome to Darwin!

    [Brian-Greens-Computer:~] briangre% sudo rmdir /Hard\\ Disk\\ ToolKit*

    Password:

    rmdir: /Hard Disk ToolKit?PE?: Directory not empty

    [Brian-Greens-Computer:~] briangre%





    Seems that there are either invisible files in the folder that I can't see, and a ctrl-a doesn't include. As for your question regarding copying files to the folder, yes I can, and I can delete files out of the folder (at least ones I can see). But the folder itself refuses to allow moving into another directory or allow a Trash option.



    Thanks for your help so far.
  • Reply 5 of 5
    gargoylegargoyle Posts: 660member
    WARNING RUNNING THIS COMMAND AS ROOT/ADMIN CAN POTENTIALLY WIPE YOUR ENTIRE SYSTEM!



    With that out of the way, in the terminal type the following.



    Code:




    cd "/Hard\\ Disk\\ ToolKit??PE?"

    pwd

    rm -r *

    cd ..

    rmdir "/Hard\\ Disk\\ ToolKit??PE?"









    I will explain these as they can be very dangerous commands.



    1.) cd This puts you INSIDE the folder you want to remove.

    2.) pwd (print working directory) this will just show you the dir you are in to double check you are in the right place. Very good habbit to get into of using this command before the next one.

    3.) rm -r * This deletes EVERYTHING from the current directory down into all subfolders.

    4.) cd .. This "goes up" one level into the parent diectory.

    5.) rmdir This should now happily delete the empty directory.
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