Delete windows from an old hard drive

Soldato
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Got my SSD up and running nicely though, and I'm using my old windows drive as storage (Which is what it mostly was before). Unfortunately, its a 1Tb drive which now only has 57Gb free. In an ideal world, I would just format and start again, unfortunately I don't have anywhere to back everything up to, so I want to make some more room by deleting all the unneeded windows stuff from there, which is easier said than done.

How can I give myself permission to? I tried to go into the permissions page for the windows folder, added myself, and tried to give myself full permission to modify, but I get the error:

An error occurred while applying security information to:
G:\Windows
Access is denied.

I have also tried the following:
To take ownership of the folder, right-click it, select Properties > Security Tab > Advanced at the bottom > Owner Tab > Edit > Highlight your username and put a tick in ‘Replace owner on sub containers…’ and Apply > OK. You will only have the ‘Replace owner on subcontainers…’ box for folders not files. Click Yes when you receive the Security pop-up window then click OK to the Close/Reopen message.

Now go back to the Properties > Security Tab. Click Edit > Add. Type in your User Account Name in the box under Enter the objects name to select. Click on Check Names > OK. Click on your User Account Name to highlight it. Check the box for Full Control > Apply and OK etc.


Unfortunately, while that all worked, when I try and delete the windows folder, I get the message that:
You need permission to perform this action.
You require permission from Aero\Iviv to make changes to this folder.

I am Aero\Iviv :(

What's the easiest way to delete these folders? Preferably which don't involve a linux live CD.
 
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Can you not do this by going into disk cleanup and then selecting the drive that the
old OS is on and then checking delete old system files or something to that effect, I
can't check exactly what it is at the minute as im at work.
 
Can you boot into dos and just 'rmdir' the folder?
You'd have to set a lot of permissions to delete the folder as there are probably loads more files and folders that deny you permission to delete them.
 
Hiya Iviv,

Just to let you know, about a week ago i was in exactly the same situation.

I tried every solution i could find online that said it would work, however to no success.

Only way for me was to copy everything i wanted to a different drive and reformat.

Hope you manage to find another way!
 
just bung a linux live cd in there and delete through that

What's the easiest way to delete these folders? Preferably which don't involve a linux live CD.

:)

Have a look at SetACL and run the recursive command on your windows folder to add the delete permission for all folders inside the windows folder.

That would be the only way to do it in Windows unless there's another tool that can do recursive permission changes.
 
ALWAYS have at least one backup drive.

Should be able to take ownership. Otherwise, use a ubuntu or mint or slax live cd
 
ALWAYS have at least one backup drive.

Should be able to take ownership. Otherwise, use a ubuntu or mint or slax live cd

Anything vital I have backed up through dropbox, and an external hard drive. However, its mostly rips of my DVDs and anime, which while I could technically remake, it would take a really long time, and is something I'd rather not do again.

Still, thanks for all the input guys, guess its time to download ubuntu again.
 
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