Where is Trash?

I have the problem where the trash contents won't delete and I've tried all of the suggestions I can find on internet, unlocking, changing permissions, etc. and nothing works.

I'd like to reformat the HD then restore from Time Machine restoring everything but Trash. Is this possible and where is Trash so I restore all but that?

What, thats a bit heavy handed!!!

Open Utilities > Terminal
We will move into .Trash and delete each files that is there.
Type these commands with Return after each one.

check that .Trash is in the list

This will list the files in the Trash
You can then select and copy the filename

This will remove that file.

Thank you for your help.

This got rid of about half of the contents of the Trash.

I still have 16 items for which the rm command returns the message that there is no such file or directory even though I have copied and pasted it from the ls -alt listing.

If you can direct me from here that would be great, but if not perhaps you could return to my original request and tell me where to find Trash when I go to restore from Time Machine?

Could you post the current ls -alt listing for the Trash as there can be more than one...
And there are other flags we can give the rm command.

I don't think the Trash is backed up by Time Machine, I just check mine and there doesn't seem like a way to restore it.

Daniel-Thomass-iMac:.Trash dthomas1942$ ls -alt
total 411160
drwx------+ 16 dthomas1942 staff 544 Oct 5 23:25 .
drwxr-xr-x 5 dthomas1942 staff 170 Oct 5 20:01 ZygorUpdater 1.3 Download 20-01-52-054
drwxr-xr-x 5 dthomas1942 staff 170 Oct 5 19:57 ZygorUpdater 1.3 Download 19-58-03-067
drwx------@ 3 dthomas1942 staff 102 Sep 26 01:40 Recovered files #1
drwxr-xr-x 5 dthomas1942 staff 170 Sep 20 21:50 ZygorUpdater 1.3 Download 21-50-42-347
drwxr-xr-x@ 20 dthomas1942 staff 680 Sep 13 02:29 Send SMS.wdgt
drwxr-xr-x 5 dthomas1942 staff 170 Sep 9 02:37 ZygorUpdater 1.3 Download
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 dthomas1942 staff 102 Sep 3 23:54 Recovered files
-rw-r--r--@ 1 dthomas1942 staff 186430558 Aug 7 00:34 Brooke 02.m4v
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 root staff 102 Jul 30 03:29 2011-03-01-000610
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 root staff 102 Jul 30 03:27 2011-02-22-005746
drwxr-xr-x+ 25 dthomas1942 staff 850 Jul 26 00:58 ..
-rw-r--r--@ 1 dthomas1942 staff 24078643 Jul 3 14:07 Joslyn reg 640 Preview.wmv
drwxr-xr-x 3 dthomas1942 admin 102 Jun 28 14:52 PiratesOnline.app
drwxr-xr-x 11 dthomas1942 staff 374 Feb 22 2011 SteamApps
drwxr-xr-x 3 dthomas1942 admin 102 Dec 29 2010 Steam.app
Daniel-Thomass-iMac:.Trash dthomas1942$

The next thing to do is make sure you have no little white install/disk images mounted no external drives, flash drives.

The easiest way to check this, Finder > Go menu, Go To Folder...
Enter /Volumes
You should just see your Main HardDrive.

Then repeat the previous steps but instead of rm type

THIS COMMAND CAN DO MUCH DAMAGE!
Don't try and delete . nor ..

This will ask you for an Admin Password and doesn't echo the key press so just keep typing.