Error Code -36 driving me insane

[JayJS]

Hello I have a strange problems this morning I feel like chucking my MacBook out of the window.

I have recently purchased a Seagate plus drive an external hard disk drive of 2 TB very nice and slim that makes it great storage on the move.

However this morning I'm trying to delete some media from it and a message come up saying error code -36.

I had a quick Scout online and I did the following..

1. Launch Terminal (Applications > Utilities) and type dot_clean, and a single space.
2. Drag the flash drive or memory card icon to the terminal window.
3. Press Enter. The hidden '._' files should be deleted and you can now copy files to the flash drive or memory card.

However I got the following

Failed trying to change dir to .Trashes
Bad Pathname: Permission denied

Any advice would be great

Many Thanks

JJ

 

[MacInWin]

Have you run Disk Utility and tried to repair the drive? What version of OS X/macOS? How is the drive formatted? How much space is used/free? Are you trying to use an Seagate software to manage the disk?

.Trashes is where the stuff in the trashcan is stored. Have you emptied the trashcan with the drive attached?

 

[ferrarr]

I thought "Trashes" files were only on Windows formatted drives?

 

[MacInWin]

I don't have any of those anymore (NTFS drives), but on externally connected drives there is a hidden folder named ".Trashes" that holds the trashed files. I just double checked and they are still there under Sierra on my Mac formatted externals and one USB stick formatted FAT32. One of the side effects of moving drives from Mac to Windows is that these hidden files are not hidden under Windows. So if you have a shared drive then when it's under Windows the .Trashes files/folder appears in the directory. I've seen a few posts from Windows users about how to get rid of this stuff and that it keeps reappearing. Yep, as soon as it's attached to a Mac, it gets recreated.

 

[lclev]

Jake - The "._Trashes" folder on a Windows PC will not show up unless in the folder options the "Show hidden files and folders" is checked. The default is for the "._Trashes" and other system files is to be hidden. But that is just an FYI as the issue is still the "._" files regardless if they are hidden or not.

I use a 2TB Iomega external drive to capture video with a MB Pro and move it to my Mac Pro. It is extFAT formatted because I sometimes need to connect it to my Windows PC. Now I realize there is potential issues with this so I also capture to a DVD burner just in case.

I notice we do not know what version of OS X the OP is using. Most of the articles I found talk about issues with Snow Leopard which makes me wonder if newer OS X versions fixed this problem.

Lisa

 

[MacInWin]

Lisa, are they "._" or just "." ? On my Sierra system, on the USB FAT32 stick, it's just "." for the hidden files. I have four folders showing: .fseventsd, .PKInstallSandboxmanager-SystemSoftware, .Spotlight-V100 and .Trashes. Nothing with ._ at all. On my Mac formatted drives I see other things, including the efi files on my TM backup drive. Still nothing with "._"

I do recall reading something about "._" files, but as I see it now, there aren't any on my externals, Mac or PC formatted. Is it maybe that Windows creates hidden files named with "._" at the front? If so, they would be hidden from OS X as well, since the default is any file with "." as the first character is hidden.

 

[lclev]

Jake - The folder is listed as .Trashes and there is also a TRASHES file is named ._.Trashes - I was at home when I posted and all I have there is Apple so I had to get to work to check (old age. ) I have my PC set to show hidden files but on all the others in the building - NO! Your average user does not need to see them. You can manually delete both but windows will recreate them. There is also three other folders that are hidden that are created - .feventsd, .Spotlight-V100 and System Volume Information. Some will have a $Recycle.BIN folder instead of .Trashes but they both do the same thing but recovering from them is different.

Lisa

 

[JayJS]

Jake - The "._Trashes" folder on a Windows PC will not show up unless in the folder options the "Show hidden files and folders" is checked. The default is for the "._Trashes" and other system files is to be hidden. But that is just an FYI as the issue is still the "._" files regardless if they are hidden or not.

I use a 2TB Iomega external drive to capture video with a MB Pro and move it to my Mac Pro. It is extFAT formatted because I sometimes need to connect it to my Windows PC. Now I realize there is potential issues with this so I also capture to a DVD burner just in case.

I notice we do not know what version of OS X the OP is using. Most of the articles I found talk about issues with Snow Leopard which makes me wonder if newer OS X versions fixed this problem.

Lisa

Hi everyone I have a few more bits of information that might help you identify my problem. My MacBook is a 2010 version and is white 2 GB ram 250 GB HDD it is a core duo and I am currently running it on operating system OSX EL Capitan 10.11.6.

I tried to do a disk repair with first aid on disk utilities but everything was okay.

I then did a command in terminal to show all hidden files and folders I have found .Trashes on my external hard disk drive however I cannot access it as it says I do not have permission?

Where to go from here?

 

[MacInWin]

Get and run Onyx (get the version for El Cap - here is the developer website www.titanium.free.fr ). As the first step when it is run, Onyx does a thorough test of the HD and does a permissions repair. That repair may fix the access for you.

BTW, is your account an Admin account? Only Admin accounts have access to certain system files and functions.

 

[cradom]

.Trashes is a Mac folder. It's where things go when you move things to the Trash. It's hidden on a Mac but visible in Windows.
If you delete it in Windows, the next time you plug it into a Mac it gets recreated.
It's SUPPOSED to be there.
Error code -36 is a disk error. For some reason Finder is having problems reading or writing to disk. Check it with Disk Utility while in Rescue mode (boot from the restore partition).
There are two Trash folders. The one in your Home folder is .Trash and the one at root of the drive is .Trashes. Which one are you having problems with?

 

[JayJS]

.Trashes is a Mac folder. It's where things go when you move things to the Trash. It's hidden on a Mac but visible in Windows.
If you delete it in Windows, the next time you plug it into a Mac it gets recreated.
It's SUPPOSED to be there.
Error code -36 is a disk error. For some reason Finder is having problems reading or writing to disk. Check it with Disk Utility while in Rescue mode (boot from the restore partition).
There are two Trash folders. The one in your Home folder is .Trash and the one at root of the drive is .Trashes. Which one are you having problems with?

I have downloaded ONYX but I'm not sure how to make it work for my seagate HDD It seams to only want to check the macbook hard disk drive.

How do I get ONIX to work for my seagate?

I have never plugged this seagate HDD into a windows PC so very confused...

I really want to delete some media from the seagate but I get error code -36 I have located the .trashes file on the seagate HDD but cannot access it.

 

[cradom]

Try holding down Option while emptying the Trash.
Also see here: https://support.apple.com/en-ng/HT201583

 

[pm-r]

And maybe try selecting the volume and change the ownership permissions and check the "ignore" option in the Get Info window at the bottom:

 

[harryb2448]

To get Onyx to operate, you will have to have a copy on the external, and then boot from that and run it the same way one does on the internal drive. This assumes you are using cloning oftware to backup to the Seagate and not Time Machine. Silly question I know however you are send media files to Trash, do they actually appear in Trash, and then you epmty Trash whilst the external is still mounted?

 

[Rod]

So my advice to you assuming you want to use this EHD on a Windows PC as well as a Mac would be to shift all of the files (if you need them) onto a Windows PC.
Erase and reformat the volume to exFAT using Disk Utility in the Applications Folder on the Mac and reload the files from the PC.
If you run into problems reformatting the volume it may be wise to repartition the HD. If so use a GUID Partition Map and then format as above.
If you want full functionality from this drive on the Mac you should format it as Mac Extended (Journalled)
Either way the above mentioned process for trashing the files should work on either platform.

 

[JayJS]

To get Onyx to operate, you will have to have a copy on the external, and then boot from that and run it the same way one does on the internal drive. This assumes you are using cloning oftware to backup to the Seagate and not Time Machine. Silly question I know however you are send media files to Trash, do they actually appear in Trash, and then you epmty Trash whilst the external is still mounted?

Hi there I am not trying to back up my Seagate and I do not use Time Machine I just have some media files and folders on my external hard disk drive that when I press delete an error message error code -32 is displayed.

 

[JayJS]

So my advice to you assuming you want to use this EHD on a Windows PC as well as a Mac would be to shift all of the files (if you need them) onto a Windows PC.
Erase and reformat the volume to exFAT using Disk Utility in the Applications Folder on the Mac and reload the files from the PC.
If you run into problems reformatting the volume it may be wise to repartition the HD. If so use a GUID Partition Map and then format as above.
If you want full functionality from this drive on the Mac you should format it as Mac Extended (Journalled)
Either way the above mentioned process for trashing the files should work on either platform.

I do not want to run this external hard disk drive on a Windows computer I do not know where you got that idea from.. I just want to delete media from the Seagate external hard disk drive

I am a Mac user this external hard disk Drive has never been used with a Windows computer it has always been used with a Mac and set up with a Mac

 

[ferrarr]

If you want to delete the files from the drive, use Disk Utility.

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH5849?locale=en_US

 

[JayJS]

If you want to delete the files from the drive, use Disk Utility.

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH5849?locale=en_US

I just want to delete 1 or 2 files not the whole disk

 

[JayJS]

Hi there I am not trying to back up my Seagate and I do not use Time Machine I just have some media files and folders on my external hard disk drive that when I press delete an error message error code -32 is displayed.

Tried this apparently Onyx doesn't work on EHDD