Return of the Undeletable File

[cdd]

Weird problem - my external hard drive has been filled to the brim with all sorts of weird directories. Worse, I can't delete them:

See for a screenshot

I've tried on more than one computer.

Any tips?

[Nick Harvey]

Have you tried going in as Administrator on whichever computer you're using and setting the privilages for that drive to everything for everybody, then trying the deletes again?

The fact that the directory is showing up as 'empty' indicates that you need to be an administrator to see it, feel it, or delete it.

[Gavin Scott]

The fact that the directory is showing up as 'empty' indicates that you need to be an administrator to see it, feel it, or delete it.

The same applies if he wants to byte it and believe it.

[Chris]

Those are all created by Windows Updates being applied to your machine.

Have you tried to take ownership of the folders? (If such a thing exists in Vista, cos they've moved it all around ...).

[Nick Harvey]

Have you tried to take ownership of the folders?

Ah, we're on the same wavelength.

Didn't realise (though should have done from the picture) that Chris was on bloomin' Vista.

You need to grab ownership of the little blighters, then you can delete them.

Why the hell did Windows Update put them at root of an external drive in the first place? I suspect you've got some settings set rather oddly, which you also ought to sort out, Chris.

[cdd]

Ah - I remember this business of "taking ownership" of files from a while back...

I think Update put them there because I had the drive plugged in at the time, and it chose the largest drive.

What I tried was going into an elevated command prompt, navigating to the directory, and typing takeown /f *.

It seemed successful:


But I still get exactly the same error on attempting to delete the files.

So, I compared the Security tab from a folder I could access and change at will, and one I couldn't. Comparison below:



Anyway, I try doing the logical thing - namely, clicking my user (which as we can see has ownership), clicking Edit, checking all the Allow boxes and clicking OK.

Alas:


And to top that off, I click OK to that dialog to get what might be the scariest message box in all of Windows:


Fuck you very much Windows.

[cdd]

BTW, if anyone has tips that relate to an XP system, I'm happy to follow those - as stated above, the problem manifests itself on all Vista and XP computers I've tried.

I'm a hair's breadth from formatting the drive and just copying the data back on!

[Chris]

I don't think this is a way to change where the files are extracted to; I suspect it's a Windows thing. In my experience, it chooses a random drive where it has lots of room and then decides to extract the files there, using a random folder name.

[lukey]

Fuck you very much Windows.

Vista Tone FTW!

[cdd]

Fuck you very much Windows.

Vista Tone FTW!

You see, that dialog would be tolerable if I had indeed "stopped the settings from propagating". But I hadn't, Windows autocratically decided to stop it, and then blame me for it, creating problems when it could just DO WHAT I ASKED. In any case, I didn't act on the message, meaning my state is inconsistent. Whatever that means.

Anyway I bet you can't find a less user-friendly dialog than that within Windows!

[lukey]

Anyway I bet you can't find a less user-friendly dialog than that within Windows!