Question

unlocking files in hard the drive

Asked by: robobob92

i have a power  mac g3 with os x 10.3.3 jaguar, i tried to put some folders in the trash but get message that they are locked, how do i unlock these files?

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Asked On
2004-05-05 at 15:13:58ID20979445
Tags

files

,

os

,

unlocking

,

Panther (OS 10.3)

,

Jaguar (OS 10.2)

Topics

Mac OS X

,

Apple Operating Systems

Participating Experts
4
Points
500
Comments
13

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Answers

 

by: ckurt99Posted on 2004-05-05 at 15:23:51ID: 11000524

You might try Trash It, http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/8214 , or one of several similar utilities found with http://www.macupdate.com/search.php?keywords=trash&os= .

Kurt

 

by: danomaticPosted on 2004-05-05 at 16:51:15ID: 11000986

You could also do this:

1) Click on a file in question just once to select it
2) On the keyboard, do a "Command + the "I" key. (the command key is just to the left of the space bar with an apple icon on it.)
3) This brings up "info" on the file
4) Expand the "general" tab and you will see a box that says "locked"
5) Uncheck it

To do multiple files, you can "command" + click once on all the files you want to trash and follow the steps above.

Did you try "repair disk permissions" see:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106272 (This pertains to 10.3 "Panther”, but you could also find a similar article on 10.2)

BTW, you say you have "10.3.3 jaguar". Jaguar is 10.2.x.  10.3.x is "Panther" which do you have?  
You can check by going to the Apple menu and choose "about this Mac"

 

by: georgempPosted on 2004-05-07 at 20:09:55ID: 11019953

if you are just going to trash the files, option-click on the empty trash menu item. It will delete the files without prompting.

 

by: danomaticPosted on 2004-05-07 at 20:33:12ID: 11020058

His question is how to move the locked files to the trash.  He has not yet gotten to the point of even being able to empty the trash, even with option key.

 

by: georgempPosted on 2004-05-07 at 20:43:40ID: 11020119

ah..my bad..
word of caution..move files that are locked only if you know you don't need them. The only files I can think of that can't be moved to the trash would be system files. Other files you should be able to move without any problem as long as you own them. If you can't move files, do a get-info on it and check the permission settings. Change them if necessary to give you write permission. You might need administrator priviliges for this. Again, move such files only if you know you don't need them.

 

by: danomaticPosted on 2004-05-07 at 22:00:49ID: 11020423

yup, don't take anything from "System" or "Library" at the root level of the hard drive unless you really know what you are doing.  You can render your computer so it won't boot.

 

by: tetanoPosted on 2004-05-13 at 01:21:09ID: 11057145

well, in some cases, if you don't repair file permissions, you won't be able to delete neither a .txt file... does anyone know why? i have a related problem... i have deleted all my account data, in order to recover some disk space, and the free space in the hard drive didn't change of a byte... i can't format the disk, cause there are other users, can somebody help me?

 

by: danomaticPosted on 2004-05-13 at 06:06:56ID: 11058734

As I asked above, can you confirm that you have either Panther or Jaguar?  (Jaguar is "10.2.x) -- you said in your 1st post you have 10.3 jaguar...

 

by: danomaticPosted on 2006-01-14 at 21:48:05ID: 15703579

I believe that I offered Robobob more than enough possibilities for solving the problem but as you can see he never even responded once to any of the comments. Request to be awarded some of the points as you see fit.

 

by: danomaticPosted on 2006-01-20 at 09:02:31ID: 15750658

sounds good, thanks

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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