Help me troubleshoot this: The trash bin in my Mac (early ’08 MacBook Pro, OS X 10.5.5) always has this weird file. If I empty the trash or drag the file out so I can open it, it goes away, until I open the trash again. It started happening last week, and doesn’t seem to be doing any harm besides annoying me. Any ideas about what it is and how to get rid of it?
(15 minutes of googling later) Turns out it’s a problem in the Windows partition. The solution: boot up Windows (either in Fusion or Boot Camp), go to My PC, right-click on the C: drive and select “Properties”. Go to the “Tools” tab and press the “Check now…” button to check the volume for errors. Tick the “Automatically fix file system errors” box and press “Start”. It’ll tell you that it will check for errors on the next reboot. Reboot, and it should find and repair an error in the .Trashes/501 folder. The weird file in the OS X trash bin should be gone for good.
