Can´t delete folder: i/o error

Hi there,

I would appreciate any help.

I have a folder on a USB drive (Sandisk external SSD) which I can’t delete.

The folder is named as found.001. If I try to remove it with sudo rm -rf found.001 command, the error rm: impossible to remove 'found.001/IndexerVolumeGuid': i/o error happens.

I also tried to unmount the drive, in order to properly run fsck, but the following error happens, preventing the operation: umount: /run/media/my_user/External_SSD: target is busy.

Any idea about that, please?

Thanks in advance.

This usually means that you have a terminal open that is in that dir or a file manager.

So, this is very strange, because I have no terminal or file manager open at this moment.

Due to all these problems, maybe this drive is starting to fail?

Hello,
Can you change directory into it and make a list of what’s inside it ?
$ ls -lia

Sure. Here you go:

ls -lia
ls: não foi possível acessar 'IndexerVolumeGuid': Erro de entrada/saída
total 4
4755 drwxrwxrwx 1 root root    0 out 26 14:23 .
   5 drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4096 out 26 14:40 ..
   ? -????????? ? ?    ?       ?            ? IndexerVolumeGuid

The error above means “ls: impossible to access ‘IndexerVolumeGuid’: I/O error”

I’ll do a quick search. I’ll be back.

If you are inside this folder: go up one.

$ cd ..

This might not work if there’s a physical cable or controller problem but let’s try:

$ rmdir found.001

Well, no luck, unfortunately. The below error happens:

rmdir: falhou em remover 'found.001': Diretório não vazio

Translating it: failed when removing ‘found.001’: directory not empty"

While that just happened, do you see some red messages in your journal at the end about your controler:

$ journalctl -b 0

Just checked here, and no red messages. :frowning:

Ok, I’ll let the big guns give you better feed back, I don’t want to abuse your time.
Take care.

No problem. Thank you very much. :slight_smile:

It looks like something that may be easier to sort out from your Windows installation.

Hi @BluishHumility ,

Thank you so much. :slight_smile:

Your post did make me think a bit more, and I solved the issue just by opening Nautilus as root and from that deleting the folder normally.

Many thanks!

That is curious; I would not have expected that to work if sudo rm -rf did not work. But glad to hear you got it sorted out!

Yes, me too.

That was very strange.

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