When is an MP3 not an MP3?

:confused When its been downloaded by either my sister or one of her offspring ..
Ok here I am again, at my wits end lol after hours of cleaning out a carpet of fluf/dust from her TESCO bought PC, pain staking hours of installing PANDA ANTIVIRUS and desperately trying to get it to update and clearing the thing of 215 infections, cleaning registry, defragging, installing a second drive for all their junk, adding more ram and a new power supply, cleaning the grubby paw prints off the LCD monitor and generally grouping all their files into logical folders rather than being scattered all over the place, deleting over 20GB of CRAP and washing my hands millions of times I have hit a brick wall.....

and guess what.. Its XP...:-D

Supermarket PC with iQon trademark, no recovery disk but options within windows to 'Recover' yeh right.. not going down that rout just yet. Thing is I need to get all their Pics (precious photos etc..) and music over to the new drive for backup but there are at least 4 stubborn "MP3" files that halt the Move To or Copy To option dead in its tracks. Explorer CPU usage goes through the roof and rotates on its memory usage, jumping up and down between 30000Kb to 67000Kb. Then Explorer crashes and reboots the desktop. Cannot RENAME/DELETE the files (hot keys have no effect on them) Right click context only gives option to Send To. FILE-DELETE does nothing and viewing properties of file hangs explorer all over again. Booted in SAFE MODE into Administrator account but gives me "ACCESS DENIED" to my sisters account where the files are, can get in the kids folders but iv cleared them already. Panda says no infections found on the files, no joy if I turn virus checking off either so Im stuck. I cant get in the folder without the whole system going tits up and Iv spent so much time getting it working for them its just those files spoiling it. Nothing I can see in installed programs that would effect it. Any help or thought greatly appreciated..
Many thanks xx

 

This will give you access.
How to take ownership of a file or a folder in Windows XP:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421

 

I was going to say, I guess you had no luck deleting from your sister's account in safe mode?

Never used it but Pocket Kill Box is often recommended for deleting files. Might be worth a try.

What exactly happens when you go into the folder with the MP3s? You say you can't get into the folder without crashing, yet you also say you can right-click the files to try to see properties. How can you right-click if you can't get into the folder?
Are there other files in the folder besides the 4 Mp3s?

 

Hi all, Iv had some sleep now so i can explain better, sorry for my tired question
The files are in her "My received Files" folder which was in Details view. it seems whenever windows tries to access information from the file (ie update duration/size etc) it would send explorer into 99% cpu usage and hang there till you end explorer as a task. that was making the folder un-enterable. i managed to be quick to make it icons view and it wont hang till you go near one of the files. I got all her other stuff out and they are the only things left in the folder.
The files in question from the information i can get are 3 MP3 and 1 AVI. they have file sizes that would make them appear to be legitimate but none have a 'Duration' the AVI has no 'Dimensions' and the MP3's have no 'Bit Rate'
If you right click the "MP3" ones the 'Cut/Copy/Create Shortcut/Rename/Delete' context is missing. going anywhere near the AVI one sends explorer str8 into 99%. The file size of the AVI is about 809Mb labelled 'mr.and.mrs.smith.avi'. The MP3 ones have very long labels , the ones that stand out as fake to me and you but my sister is a bit naive with computers. I am pretty sure they were viruses which have/are being held back by panda antivirus but it isnt seeing them as a threat for some reason and it is up to date. I tried to delete them in CMD but that just gives you the x-files type " ACCESS DENIED! " which would be funny if id not sat up all night trying to get round this lol
To add further the system was very clogged with remnents of malware which i have spent hours removing traces in folders/registry all by hand and scanning every single folder and file on there from all the user folders and in task scheduler and in event viewer which showed up objects trying and failing to do there bit on the dates panda removed their parent .exe's and .dll's. Im just really stuck trying to get rid of these last few things which are still trying to do something if you try to get rid of them.
Im really greatfull for this help.

 

It is probably the corrupt .avi causing the explorer lockup.

Turn of media preview and the folder should open normally and then try deleting. If it won't delete try the unlocker and see if you get passed the access denied. [Once installed when you try to delete the file a window will open choose "Unlock All" and see if it helps.]

 

Tried to delete it but 'DEL' the red X and context menu do nothing but freeze explorer.

Finally done it. I went in safe mode as administrator and set permissions for the folder to administrator allow all and just deleted the folder !! YAY god that was so hard you sometimes forget there are lots of back doors and hidden rooms in windows its easy to forget the more powerful tools and settings. i want to thank you guys for taking time to help me turn a trashy pc that was given up on into a nice great machine again. its working a treat now and humming away quietly to its self thank you again

 

did you go through Chaslang's Malware procedure?

 

Thanks for posting back. So it really was an "Access Denied" error. Good to know.