*Undeleteable* file weirdness (Windows XP Pro)

Papa Lazarou

Papa Lazarou

Papa Lazarou

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Hi, I recently added a 2nd hard drive (a Raptor as it happens) to my system. I have decided to re-organise things so that windows & programs run from the Raptor, and my second larger HD is used for holding everything else (My Documents, all downloaded stuff etc).

I used a utility from Western Digitals site to copy everything from my existing boot drive to the Raptor, and it worked a treat. I then modified a few things to get "My Documents" etc pointing at the former boot disk. That seems to have worked fine.

The issue I have is that when I came to clean up the old boot disk to free up space, there is one file in the old Windows folder that is quite simply undeleteable!! The error message suggests the file is in use or disk write protected.

It is Windows/System32/Macromed/Flash9.ocx

I have tried :

Renaming it using the "ren" command in command prompt (it sucessfully renamed the file, but I still can't delete it).
Booting to safe mode (same error message)
Deleting it using the command prompt (won't do it)

Anyone have any ideas? The file is only 2mb so is not a big deal, but it is bugging me somewhat..

Cheers
 
You haven't specifically said you have tried it already, but I find Safe Mode with Command Prompt the easiest way to remove these kinds of files. Login to the Administrator account and browse to your profile folder from the Command Prompt, then delete.
 
Try autititing/ownership settings. I had a single file I couldn't delete on my 320GB. Tried everything. In the end I just copied all files except that directory to my other drive, quick formatted it then copied then back. :)
 
Hi. Thanks for the tips.

Have just tried Unlocker. It reports that the file is not locked, but is then unable to delete it. It offers to delete the file after the next reboot, which I accepted. Unfortunately, after I rebooted it was still there!!

Yep tried safe mode command prompt.

Haven't tried the formatting route. Its a bit of a pain as theres quite a lot of files to copy off the partition that I want, but its sounding like that might be the only way :(
 
Papa Lazarou said:
Hi. Thanks for the tips.

Have just tried Unlocker. It reports that the file is not locked, but is then unable to delete it. It offers to delete the file after the next reboot, which I accepted. Unfortunately, after I rebooted it was still there!!

Yep tried safe mode command prompt.

Haven't tried the formatting route. Its a bit of a pain as theres quite a lot of files to copy off the partition that I want, but its sounding like that might be the only way :(
Click to expand...

Knoppix Linux Bootable CD ?

Worth a go..
 
try this..

regsvr32 /u x:\windows\system32\Macromed\Flash\flash.ocx

should unregister the ocx if its unregisterable..
reboot
delete

-replace x with whatever drive its on
 
Una said:
Yeah use a livecd and kill it from that.
Click to expand...

Hmm. Tried this, but does anyone know a live CD that works with an Abit AB9 Pro motherboard? Two that I've tried (Suse 9 & 10) both come up with the same fatal error once the kernal starts - "Unable to find CD I was booted from. Doh!". I think it might be something to do with it not recognising the JMicron motherboard controller or something like that.

bledd. said:
try this..

regsvr32 /u x:\windows\system32\Macromed\Flash\flash.ocx

should unregister the ocx if its unregisterable..
reboot
delete

-replace x with whatever drive its on
Click to expand...

Thanks. Tried this. Get a message saying "DllUnregisterServer in xxxx succeeded" but on rebooting, still find its locked.
 
Papa Lazarou said:
Hmm. Tried this, but does anyone know a live CD that works with an Abit AB9 Pro motherboard? Two that I've tried (Suse 9 & 10) both come up with the same fatal error once the kernal starts - "Unable to find CD I was booted from. Doh!". I think it might be something to do with it not recognising the JMicron motherboard controller or something like that.

Thanks. Tried this. Get a message saying "DllUnregisterServer in xxxx succeeded" but on rebooting, still find its locked.
Click to expand...

Try Knoppix or Ubuntu livecd instead.
 
I'm sure that you can read/write to NTFS volumes using a tool called captive-NTFS from within Knoppix.
 
Tried Ubuntu (latest version) - doesn't start. Reading arount it seems this is a known problem and support for i965/Jmicron equipped PC's is being worked on... https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.17/+bug/57502

Gnoppix latest release is older, so I have my doubts that'll be any different.

Tried HiJackThis - nice little program :) But unfortunately can't delete my file :mad:

Guess I'll just put up with it as the other stuff on this partition is not easily moved (Documents & Settings folder - moving it here wasn't easy and I don' really want to move it again, just to re-format the partition).

Does anyone know of a really simple boot disk or anything? A really simple "DOS" boot floppy which would give access to NTFS volumes would be good I think.
 
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