Friend's iMac finder not responding because off failed massive drag and drop?

[Jerry®]

My friend has a 2007 iMac running 10.11. Last night a friend of his accidentally chose about 1000 music files from an an external drive and half-ass dragged them to the desktop of the iMac. My friend had unplugged all the external drives from his iMac by the time I got here to rectify the situation and all that happens is the finder just spins and spins. I relaunched it and it's ok for a second or two but then starts spinning. The system isn't completely frozen but it's difficult to do anything. I even booted it up into Safe Mode and still the same thing. My theory is that if I delete the finder plist it might do the trick but I could be wrong? Anyway to do that I'd have to be able to get to the right finder window or terminal but with the finder non responsive I'm at a loss.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Here's a photo of his screen showing all these aliased music files that apparently are holding the finder hostage:

[Ombligo]

Two thoughts come to mind...

Access it remotely.

hook the external back up and let it do it's thing. It may be looking for the files to copy, let them copy and then delete.

[WHiiP]

I would hold the power button down for 5-10 seconds until the iMac shuts down. Then wait a few more seconds and turn it back on. Minor risk involved, but when I needed to do there was no problem.

[NewtonMP2100]

......can you repeat that please......

[M A V I C]

The thread above might have your answer.