Funkiest thing...cannot delete a file

Most likely, because the damn thing is like 500 characters long for the filename. Its a stupid temp internet file from one site that has about 4 billion sub-pages that my husband goes to sometimes for Racing info.

It stuck a file on both our computers that I CANNOT delete. Not through Windows not through DOS, and not through any file deletion proggie I have seen.

It is making me absolutely bonkers, and the bad thing is, I cant even reinstall Windows because I cant find our 2kPro disks :<

Any suggestions??
Im SO open to anything.
I cant even run AdAware...
It freezes it every time.

 

hmm, interesting problem. I think Kodo did a post on how to delete invalid 0 length files from cracker attacks a while back... hmmm, ill go look for that post.

Have you tried emptying the cache with IE? navigated to the folder in a command prompt window, and typed del *.* ? tried defragging? tried running chkdsk (if youre 2k/XP, that is)

 

since the file name is over 256 characters long we have a problem...

move everything out of that folder that contains the invalid folder. move it all to a temporary directory in preparation to moved BACK to it's original location. Once the directory is empty except for the offending folder, take note of the name of the root folder and go to a command prompt and type

RD C:\path_to_root_folder_where_long_file_name_file_exists

of course you should replace the above with the path to root folder.

Please make sure you copy everything out and take note of the root folder name as you may have to re-create the directory structure when you are done. If it's a temporary internet folder, then it will recreate itself.

 

I have tried everything. Its making me insane.

I have gone in to manually delete, and it wont move, it wont even let me highlight it because its actually an invalid file.

Another thing I wanna know is, how the HELL can they get away with HAVING a stupid downstream of that long of a file name????

RD wont work.
Del *.* wont work.

I have tried cmd prompts, making me go WAYYYY back to my DOS days out the ying yang, tried looking on the MS site, and they dont seem to have something relevant to that type of problem there, unless I just didnt find it looking through the search I did for deleting files of the 400 pages ;/

Every time I try and do the RD, it tells me the directory isnt empty. Of course. And when I try and manually enter in the filename in DOS, with no errors, it asks are you sure, and of course, I click yes, then it says file not found. And I KNOW the path is correct.

Its making me friggin insane!!!

 

Any more ideas guys??

 

Don't know if this will work in win2k.

Deleting files - Access Denied Error

Just open NOTEPAD and then click on "OPEN". Navigate to the file in the little Notepad "explorer" window and right click on the file and delete it.

OR this

Explorer.exe in XP has a bad habit of wanting to hang on to files, even when you have finished using them - therefore when you try to delete the file, XP will say "Access Denied".
This error occurs more often when working with media files - mp3, avi, mpeg etc.
TIP:
Close all open applications.
Open a command prompt and navigate to the directory with the offending files.
Then open the Task Manager and click on the Processes tab. select "explorer.exe" under Image Name. Click "End Process".
That will leave you with only the command prompt and the task manager running.
Now at the Command Prompt, its time to delete the file(s). Using the DEL command. Example c:>\movies\DEL movie.avi
Now the files are deleted, go to the task manager and click on the Applications tab. Click the "New Task" button. in the dialog, type explorer.exe and click OK.

For folders the command is 'rd'.

 

Boot to safe mode, right click file and choose Security tab, Click Advanced and clear the check to inherit permissions from parent folders. Back in the Security window, remove every account there and add your own account back. and give yourself Full Control by checking the Full Control box. Hit Ok. Then try deleting it. Make sure you are in safe mode so no proccess is attatching itself.

 

Have you tried to rename it first?
Maybe you should try with some third party program, like file shredder or file destroyer...

 

I've tried everything I can think of.
Trying to rename it, trying to hide it, trying cache and temp file cleaners to get rid ofit.

Its just... there.

I have tried a few file deleters and they say its not a valid file.

I still want to know how the hell these guys can get away with putting something that is invalid on someone;s system.

Any other ideas short of a Win Reinstall?

Maybe something different with what I have already tried??

 

go to start..run.. type CMD
at the prompt type the below replacing [drive] with the drive letter and path with the path to the folder ABOVE where the bogus folder lies.

RMDIR [/S] [/Q] [drive:]path

 

open to anything huh, hehe, j/k. could it posibly be a bum program, look in add delete porgrams, also do a search on the net for the file name, may produce a solution, good luck

 

Well, if it was a real file, then yeah, I could do a search, but since its a stupid left over from a damn web page, and just a damn pop-up html file, I dont know what to do.

I'll try that RD command with the switches tho.
Thankee

 

Hi,

One possible way to delete the file might be using the Recovery Console.

If you have the Recovery Console enabled, and it is up to date, you can probably delete the problem file using it (you might have to use wildcards to specify the name without getting errors - make sure that you don't inadvertantly match anything else!).

NOTE: Installing Windows 2000 service packs may *not* update the Recovery Console files, depending on how it was originally installed. Here's a link to a good article describing the problem and how to update it (but you need your Windows 2000 CD): http://www.jsiinc.com/SUBF/TIP2600/rh2661.htm

If the Recovery Console is installed, but not up-to-date, you'll get a kernel error (as I discovered the hard way - following the instructions at the link above took care of that ) and won't be able to use it.

If using the Recovery Console isn't an option you could try using an different command interpreter: JP Software's 4NT is a good one (http://www.jpsoft.com/), and might not have the same file name length limitations as Windows.

If none of the above works you can try this:

1. Close all open programs.
2. Open a CMD window.
3. CD to the parent directory of the subdirectory in which the problem file resides and note the subdirectory's exact name.
4. REN the subdirectory to something unique. I usually just tack a ".CYA" onto the name.
5. MD a new subdirectory with the original name of the subdirectory you just renamed.
6. Exit the CMD window and restart the system.

This should at least put the problem file "out of the way", and you can work on deleting/renaming it at your leisure without getting errors in other programs. In addition, any other files that were stored within the directory will still be there, so if there's something that you need you can move/copy it later.

Hope this helps!


Regards,

dj

 

LOL
Well, of course, ANOTHER part of the problem, as usual, is that I cannot find my W2k Pro Cd ANYWHERE

I think my desk ate it...

But, I updated everything, and was finally able to get programs to run without crashing, and found an amazing 50 spyware thinggies on here without even have ran it more than once.

This is the kids puter, so they look at stupid sites a lot more than I do
so they had a lot more junk on it.

It still is going to make me nuts, but at least its not crashing things anymore.

I will try what you suggested DJ and see if it works when I have a little more time

::hugs everyone::
Thanks for all the help!!