deleting an old windows install

Thomas. PLease.

Thomas. PLease.

Thomas. PLease.

Soldato
Joined
5 Jul 2007
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London
Hi there,

A while ago I rebuilt my PC with a new hard drive and fresh install of windows 7.

I kept my old drive which had an install of windows XP on. This drive now has all my music on, however also has 14GB worth of unused windows install left on it.

I've tried deleting this but a whole bunch of warnings, and unable to delete messages appear and it won't delete.

Is there a way to remove these un-used files?

Thanks,
 
If you select the single Windows folder and try to delete it wont work. Ive done it before by going into the Windows Folder and select loads of files/folders and delete them, gradually eat your way through the whole thing. You'll probably come across some files that wont delete, if you copy and cut them to somewhere else you should be able to delete them. Interestingly the last time I did this, one of the files that refused to delete was an Adobe Flash file. Youre be suprised, there arent many protected files, they all delete as usual. If you move it out the Windows folder you can then delete it. There may be an easier way to delete the Windows folder, maybe someone will post a solution.

Also, how are you connecting the spare HDD to the pc? Internal SATA/IDE connection or with a USB enclosure? This may have an impact on deleting files maybe? I dunno.

EDIT: You may need to enable hidden files also > Open Windows Folder, on top toolbar Tools>Folder Options>View>Show hidden files and folders.
 
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I'm not sure if it will work for a non system drive but you could try the built in 'disk cleanup' utility in windows 7. It is designed specifically for cleaning up old windows installations etc. Once it starts you will have to click the clean up system files button, then it will scan the drive for old windows installs. Again I'm not sure if this will work in your situation.

Otherwise you could just backup your music to your system drive, format the old windows xp drive, and then copy everything back again. That way you would guarantee you had a clean drive and will not miss any hidden files.
 
you probably need to take ownership of the whole drive. there will be permissions set by the old install refusing your permission to delete. right click the drive and goto the security tab. then click, advanced>owner>edit and tick the box "replace owner on subcontainers and objects".

edit: have you tested your windows 7 will boot without this drive attached? sometimes windows does odd things like putting boot files on the wrong disk when you have multiple disks installed. you should check this before going too mad deleting old files.
 
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