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General discussion

Deleting a corrupt folder

Oct 30, 2006 11:05PM PST

I know this is a common issue, but I haven't found a solution that works yet. I have a folder on a non-system hard drive that for whatever reason is corrupt. I can't access the folder or delete it, and yes, it is taking up space.

I have tried Safe Mode, Safe Mode Command Prompt, and Chkdsk with no luck. For what it's worth, I can look at the "properties" of the folder and it says it is not taking up any space, but I know it is anyway.

Thanks.

Discussion is locked

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I had one of those and...
Oct 30, 2006 11:26PM PST

Even tools from Norton wouldn't touch it. Finally I bowed to the inevitable and copied the entire drive except that folder to a new hard disk and then put that drive into a new machine which wiped it out.

Believe me I really tried on that one over 2 years. The only item I didn't try was a sector editor.

Bob

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That was my next step...
Oct 31, 2006 1:07AM PST

But I was just seeing if there was any last hope. I am constantly backing up that hard drive to another one, so it wouldn't be too inconvenient. I'll take your word on it that it's not worth messing around with.

Because it's a non-system drive, I'm guessing I can just do a standard format of that partition through Windows.

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Have you tried "MoveOnBoot"?
Oct 31, 2006 4:44AM PST

I bow to Bob's greater experience, but it is just a thought, and something worth considering before going the long route.

MoveOnBoot (Google) can delete most troublesome files and folders on the next bootup, although I found I had to be careful what I asked it to delete and almost deleted a whole folder, instead of just one file.

Mark

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That's a great tool.
Oct 31, 2006 4:54AM PST

In my case it was vestige leftover from a MAC AFS share from my Windows NT 4.0 Server days. The only reason I left it so long was it was one of those challanging things that I thought would "good to know" how to fix.

In the end I just bowed to the inevitable solution.

Bob

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No luck...
Oct 31, 2006 7:18AM PST

with Moveonboot either. Oh well. I'll give it another day of effort before I format. I hear you though...I wish I could take the time to figure it out, but I'm not sure it's worth it.

I really appreciate all your experience and thoughts though; they're always a great help.

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Delete file error: Can't read from the source file or disk
May 20, 2009 11:20PM PDT

Hi,

I've just had a problem deleting files with the Error: Can't read from the source file or disk.

I managed to find this forum post http://blog.dotsmart.net/2008/06/12/solved-cannot-read-from-the-source-file-or-disk/

From what i've understood, if the file has been stored correctly, by NTFS standards, but can't be read using Windows, because the win32 api standards differ in how it interprets the files and folder, then you won't be able to access the file through windows, even though CHKDSK tells you theres no problems, because its checking it against NTFS.

THE FIX:

To fix this problem you need to bypass the win32 api checks, this can be done by placing the prefix \\?\ before the drive:\directory\file.

For example:

RD \\?\"C:\example.txt"
would delete the file C:\example.txt without following the win32 api checks.

and

RD -s \\?\"C:\example folder"
would delete the folder "C:\example folder" and all subfolders/files without following the win32 api checks.

Note: make sure you place your "Drive:\directory\file" between quotes!

Hope this helps