Re: Unable to delete orphaned 1.5 GB System Restore folder

By any chance is your computer in a domain and you are using roaming
profiles? If so you may want to leave this folder alone. If not the solution
has already been mentioned at least twice in this thread.

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

Most techs that have been around for more than a year or so have a Windows
PE based boot disk for working on NT based machines. BartPE is probably the
most common. I am suprised someone that has been using computers to make a
living for as long as you claim to doesn't know this. Maybe it's because you
don't repair computers for a living :-)

--
Kerry
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

puzzled and frustrated wrote:
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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