A Wee Problemo

Endurance Man · 05-01-2006 9:28pm #1

Ahoy there folks.
Iv finally worked up the courage to sort out my 300gigs of complete and utter chaos

. Its going well so far but i keep hitting this same snag. There are a few files that if i try and move/delete i get this error message:

Cannot Delete "FILE" : Access Is Denied
Make sure the file is not full or right or write protected and that the file is not currently in use.

Iv checked and none of these files are set to "Read Only". I think they must be files i started downloading and then stopped/canceled.
Is there anyway to delete this damn things? They are holding me back from neat clean folders.

Cheers

.

angelofdeath · 05-01-2006 9:30pm

safe mode?

EOA_Mushy · 05-01-2006 9:45pm

Scan for for virus?

Mr. Presentable · 05-01-2006 9:54pm

Try MoveOnBoot. It's free and this simple tool allows you to Move, Copy or Delete files before Windows can lock or alter the files. The changes are made to your hard drive before Windows starts, hence it requires a restart of your system after you give MoveOnBoot its instructions.

http://www.softwarepatch.com/software/moveonboot.html

Endurance Man · 05-01-2006 9:58pm

angelofdeath wrote:

safe mode?

If all else fails i try it out

.

Scan for for virus?

AVG is my pet, i look after him and take him for regular walks

.

Try MoveOnBoot. It's free and this simple tool allows you to Move, Copy or Delete files before Windows can lock or alter the files. The changes are made to your hard drive before Windows starts, hence it requires a restart of your system after you give MoveOnBoot its instructions.

http://www.softwarepatch.com/software/moveonboot.html

I will give this a bash quick and see what happens

.

Thanks for the replys.

TomCo · 05-01-2006 10:00pm

Delete it from the command prompt.

Kids these days don't know their dos!

angelofdeath · 05-01-2006 10:17pm

oh btw hijackthis also has a delete file on reboot option in its misc tools section, very handy security tool to have anyway

shanethemofo · 05-01-2006 10:32pm

check that the file isnt in use... ctrl alt del nd go to processes... then see if that file is running... if so then end the process and delete the file immediatly

plonk · 05-01-2006 10:37pm

try using norton cleensweep or similar software cleensweep is handy for deleting corrupt files

mp3guy · 05-01-2006 10:45pm

Knoppix live cd

Endurance Man · 05-01-2006 11:03pm

angelofdeath wrote:

oh btw hijackthis also has a delete file on reboot option in its misc tools section, very handy security tool to have anyway

This Moveonboot program that nipplenuts reccomended is a bit annoying due to the fact that you can only do one file/folder at a time

. So far i have 6 of these folders so this means restarting the PC 6 times just for these and im sure there will be more.
Angel, do you no if this program allows you to delete multiple files?

Endurance Man · 05-01-2006 11:04pm

shanethemofo wrote:

check that the file isnt in use... ctrl alt del nd go to processes... then see if that file is running... if so then end the process and delete the file immediatly

I havent used some of these files in over a year

, im fairly sure that is not the reason.

Plonk: Nortons is the devil :eek:

angelofdeath · 05-01-2006 11:11pm

nope it does one at a time

unkel · 06-01-2006 12:09am

TomCo wrote:

Delete it from the command prompt.

Kids these days don't know their dos!

Won't work from within windows, but you've half of the solution there

EM, here's how it's done:

1. open command prompt
2. open task manager
3. in task manager select every process called "explorer.exe" and end the process
4. in your command prompt session browse :rolleyes: to the file you need deleting and delete it there (e.g. "del d:\pron\nasty_schoolgirls.avi" sans quotes or "del d:\mp3\illegally downloaded\*.*")
5. once done deleting all unwanted files, in task manager click file, new and type in explorer and hit ok

aidan_dunne · 06-01-2006 1:09am

Okay, I've had this happen to me lots of times in the past as well and I discovered a fairly simple solution. Often if I'm sorting/renaming/moving/deleting a lot of files, this thing seems to happen to me after a while for no apparant reason either. It completely confused me for a while but I eventually found out that by just shutting down Windows and rebooting the computer, when Windows loaded up again and I went back to delete the files they deleted then no bother. I don't know if this is just some sort of inherent flaw within Windows or what but simply rebooting the machine has always worked for me without fail. So maybe give that a shot and see what happens. If it doesn't work after you reboot Windows, well then, I can't think of anything else other than deleting them through the command prompt or try some of the other solutions posted already.