Re: Unable to delete orphaned 1.5 GB System Restore folder

I'll see if Microsoft can come up with a solution. It'd be worth the $35 if
they can. BTW, when i said i had full control over the C: drive, it includes
all subdirectories with inherited permissions. It doesn't help to to try
doing this in Safe Mode.

It seems clear that neither of you know the mechanism by which System
Restore protects its restore files from deletion by anything other than
Windoze XP Pro with the Disk Cleanup/Advanced/Save Only Most Recent Restore
Point. There seems to be running process that starts up when i try to delete
it or change ithe attributes of the S-1-5-8 top-level folder and pass it down
to all children folders because i can set those permissions to All, but in a
second or two, Windows always resets it to Read-Only, so Windoze is starting
up a process just to reset the ownership and privileges of that S-1-5-8 and
it undoes any settings i've changed to take ownership and give myself full
rights to the folder and all subdirectories.

Sorry for being snappy, but i've been using computers to make a living
before most of the people here were even born. Any time i need tech support,
be it with my internet connection, the box, or any software, all i get for
the first hour or two is people in India following a flow-chart and making me
do exactly everything that i've already tried twice before even calling them.
You two are the same.

I'll call M$FT tomorrow and see if they can come up with a solution for $35
(or maybe even free since i've never called them for support with XP and they
say the first two incidents are free).

It's clear that neither of you know how System Restore protects its files.
If anyone else has this same problem, i will post the solution if M$FT can
fix the problem.

Thanks for trying, but you have not helped solve the problem. I'm sure you
mean well, and most of the people who post here don't know as much about this
stuff as you do. I was hoping to find someone who knew how System Restore
protects its files.

The one thing i haven't tried yet is to make a full backup, delete all but
most recent restore point, and then turn off System Restore completely and
reboot a few times into Safe Mode and see if i can delete it then from Safe
Mode.

David

"Steven L Umbach" wrote:

Hi Malke.

Thanks for that info. That is pretty much what I thought. I tried Knoppix a
couple times with a utility that was supposed to allow write and delete and
did not work too well. Since I discovered Bart's PE that is what I use now.
Hopefully he will figure it out. I really don't think it is that complicated
of an issue. --- Steve


"Malke" <notreally@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%23iqE%23PNfGHA.4828@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Steven L Umbach wrote:


"puzzled and frustrated"
<puzzledandfrustrated@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:83835395-D937-4B33-88CA-EA43EDB1DEDE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
That advice was no help at all. I have FULL CONTROL over the entire
C: drive
and all subdirectories, imcluding C:/TEMP.

You did not give any info on if you checked file permissions or not.
That would be a suspected reason. By the way just becaue you have full
control at the root folder does not mean that you have full control on
all folders/files on the drive. Folders/files can have explicitly
defined permissions instead of inherited permissions with the system
volune information folder being a perfect example of one and by
default only system has permissions to that folder. If there is one
file in a folder that you do not have fullcontrol/modify permission
then you can not delete the folder.

I don't need instruction in basic Windoze file ownership and
permissions. I
am the OWNER of that file and have full permissions according to
Windows
Explorer. Using the attrib command does more than you suggested
because it
allows the System bit to be taken off of a file or folder. Even that
doesn't
help.

File attributes have absolutely nothing to do with the ability to
delete a file - you are wasting your time dealing with them. If you
have effective delete permissions for a file and the file is not being
used by a process and the file is not corrupt nor is using an illegal
name or a few other obscure reasons you should be able to delete it.

XP Pro treats the System Restore files with some type of special
protection
similar to the way they prevent you from deleting crucial system
files. Instead of general advice on how to delete files and change
ownership and permissions, i need information specific to how XP
"protects" the System Restore files and how to turn that off for
files no longer used by System Restore.

See if you can delete any files and or child folders. It could be just
a couple files causing the problem. From the parent folder try going
into the security properties/advanced and then select "replace
permisions entries on all child objects". You could also try deleting
from the command line using system by using the AT command to schedule
the delete command in the future by a couple minutes. Or use the AT
command to open the command window to try using delete which also be
running as system which can be verified by Task manager. Tasks
scheduled by the AT command run as system.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;313565 ---
using the AT command

Does anyone know how to override that "protection"? Gimme a break.
You're
telling me to run CHKDSK when i said the orphaned file is over a year
old and
i've posted that two different versions of Linux won't let me delete
those
files and their folders. It says "ACCESS DENIED."

One single corrupt file could cause the failure where the operating
system can not interpret the security descriptors. Running Check Disk
with the option to automatically fix file system errors often can fix
such a problem. Offhand I don't know why linux did not work but for
any operating system you need permissions to delete files and
root/administrator may not always have such. I like using Bart's PE
better in such situations and it also allows me to edit the registry
of another Windows operating system when I need to. The link below
from Microsft may be helpful in dealing with files you can not
delete. --- Steve

Steve - If the OP wasn't using an unsupported tool such as Captive on
Linux , then it is completely unsurprising that he couldn't delete the
files from within Linux. All those live cd's such as Knoppix mount the
drives read-only which is A Good Thing. It is not recommended to try
and write to - or delete from - a partition/drive formatted NTFS. Since
the OP has extensively mentioned permissions, I think we can rule out
FAT32. So the OP isn't quite as computer-savvy as he thinks he is.

As you say, there is probably a permissions issue and a Bart's PE or
even ERD Commander (if the OP is rich) should take care of the problem.

Of course, the quick and dirty solution would be to back up the data and
clean-install Windows. Since the OP yells at people who are trying to
help him when they make a suggestion that he might not be as
knowledgeable as he thinks he is, I won't bother to include my usual
links to clean-install instructions.

Malke
--
MS-MVP Windows User/Shell
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic"



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