There's an easier way than reinstalling the OS, but you have to be *real* careful. Open the Terminal app and type this command, *exactly* as shown:

sudo rm -i ~/.Trash/*


The descriptive version of the above command is "sudo" space "rm" space "-i" (that's a minus sign and the lower case letter "eye", with no spaces), space, "~/.Trash/*" (the last keyword is "tilde forward-slash period Trash forward-slash asterisk", all with no spaces, and only the "T" in Trash is in upper case). On my keyboard the tilde is just above the tab key and I have to shift to get it - the non-shifted version is the "back single-quote" or "back tick" (or whatever it's called).

The "sudo" part runs the subsequent command as "root" (the all-powerful admin user), so you'll be prompted for your password. The "rm" part is the standard *nix command for removing files, the "-i" part makes the "rm" command interactive, so it'll ask you before it removes each file - hit a "y" (for "yes") to remove it. No return is needed - the file is removed as soon as you hit the"y" key. Hit any other key to not remove it. This is handy in case you mess something else up, since it makes it harder to accidentally delete all your stuff. You can leave the "-i" part out, but then this command becomes quite dangerous. The last part, the "~/.Trash/*" tells the "rm" command to remove all the files in your ".Trash" folder, which is really where your Trash lives. The "~/" refers to your home directory, and the ".Trash" is theactual name of your Trash folder. It won't delete folders, so if the stuck file that won't delete is an application (which are really special folders in OS X) or some other folder, then you'll need a variant of this command.

The most important thing to remember is to not put any spaces before the "*" at the end, since if you do that "*" will refer to all the files in your home directory, and you probably don't want to delete those.

Good luck, and post a follow-up here if you have any questions.



Dana