Error Dropping Database (Can't rmdir '.test\', errno: 17)

A database is represented by a directory under the data directory (usually /var/lib/mysql), and the directory is intended for storage of table data.

The DROP DATABASE statement will remove all table files and then remove the directory that represented the database. It will not, however, remove non-table files, whereby making it not possible to remove the directory.

MySQL displays an error message when it cannot remove the directory

you can really drop the database manually by removing any remaining files in the database directory and then the directory itself.

I ran into this same issue on a new install of mysql 5.5 on a mac. I tried to drop the test schema and got an errno 17 message. errno 17 is the error returned by some posix os functions indicating that a file exists where it should not. In the data directory, I found a strange file ".empty":

sh-3.2# ls -la data/test
total 0
drwxr-xr-x   3 _mysql  wheel  102 Apr 15 12:36 .
drwxr-xr-x  11 _mysql  wheel  374 Apr 15 12:28 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 _mysql  wheel    0 Mar 31 10:19 .empty

Once I rm'd the .empty file, the drop database command succeeded.

I don't know where the .empty file came from; as noted, this was a new mysql install. Perhaps something went wrong in the install process.

Go to the datadir for your mysql installation and rm the databases manually. It can be

/usr/local/var/mysql

Then,

rm -R <Your DB name>

To check datadir for your installation,

vim the mysql.server file and find it there.