Self Replicating "Application Data" Folder on External Drive?!?

Hi Folks -

Been a long time since I had a problem I couldn't solve myself, but when I DO come across those, this is ALWAYS where I come, based on the extreme expertise demonstrated by the people who helped me previously. You guys ROCK, really!

So here's the issue in as concise form as I can put it now, will elaborate as required based on questions from anyone trying to offer support.

Some time ago (> 1 yr) I had a M/B failure that forced me to replace the M/B. As a result I knew I had to reinstall the O/S and all the applications & updates I had accumulated over several years (yes I almost cried).

Before I started that task, I backed up both both of the existing partitions, each of which was ~65% capacity. The problem here was that having no bootable O/S, I couldn't access any "proper" GUI backup software, so in the end I resorted to using Robocopy from the command line, and copied EVERYTHING to my 1TB portable drive (Seagate FreeAgent Go).

Over time I gradually reinstalled the O/S and apps, and migrated the data back to where it belonged, and I have now reached the end of that process, with one problem.

The original (and re-installed) O/S is Vista Home Basic 32-bit SP2. After finally moving the last of my data over to the desire location on my HDD, I wanted to delete the last remaining folder(s) from the portable drive and hit a snag. In attempting to delete the top level folder "c_drive_transfer" I got hit with several "Access Denied" messages relating to folder, subfolder and file permissions.

I tediously went through each sub-folder, took ownership, and then was able to (mostly) delete those folders. On occaision, even though I had selected the box to "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects" sometimes a certain file would not be given my ownsership attributes and I had to go down a level, edit the file permissions &/or ownership, delete the file and then delete the sub-folder that contained it.

In each case, the last remaining lowest level folder is always "Application Data" and the lowest level instance of that folder is dimmed indicating a hidden system folder.

Having tried the approach of taking ownership and deleting that folder, I bagan to notice that everytime I did, an apparently new version of that gets created.

I am now nested 18 levels deep with this structure, and having deleted all the other extraneous stuff and left with that one last hidden system folder, which I KNOW will replicate itself as soon as I attempt to change permissions/ownership...

I can't be the only guy this has ever happened to, I know it has something to do with Junctions/Soft Links or something of the sort, but I can't seem to find a solution anywhere.

To make me look a little less like a noob moron, those of you who know the answer right off the top of their heads must wait a day or 2 to respond...at least make it look like it was a BIT of a challenge! :-D

Thanx
WarGawd

 

If all of the data has now been moved, you can delete the partition on the USB drive and reformat using Disk Management. Or is that something you prefer not to do?

You could try deleting the files offline using Puppy linux. That boots to a root user so you should have no problem deleting the files and folders.

 

@tgell:

Since it has taken me so long to migrate the data back to its proper locations, the drive has been used for a lot of storage of other stuff which exceeds the capacity of the 2 PC partitions...therefore I have no place to temporarily move that stuff to if I were to contemplate a deletion/recreation of the portable drive partition. Honestly even if I could it seems like way more work than I would expect to have to do to solve what I think in the end will be a simple problem.

As for using another OS to delete the files, I admit I have not tried. The reason is that I expect that any OS that can read/write to the NTFS partition should respect the essential structure of that partition, (ie recognizing permissions, symbolic links and junctions etc.) and I assumed that would be the sticking point again. I don't know this for fact, and could easily be wrong there.

FYI for yourself and others, after doing a bit more digging on the subject of NTFS filesystems as pertaining to Symbolic links, Junctions, Hard Links etc, I have come to believe that the problematic folder is NOT a junction because "dir /al /s" executed in a command window run as administrator reports no results (as it does correctly on the C: drive).

I will add a bit more detail related to this, as well as some related observed behavior, probably tomorrow...my wifi hotspot is closing up shop for the night just now.

Thanx for the attempt (you're just waiting the requested day or 2 to drop the real answer in my lap aren't you? :-D )

 

See if taking ownership of the external drive solves the issue.

If that does not work I believe your best bet would be to try the deletion offline using Puppy. Or maybe use a program like IObit file unlocker.

http://majorgeeks.com/IObit_Unlocker_d6839.html

http://www.iobit.com/iobit-unlocker.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2wkaMFsh04

 

Just to add to tgell's reply, Puppy will completely ignore both ownership and symbolic links. It will delete anything you want--no questions asked. It probably is the easiest most sure way to quickly solve the problem.
If you have an empty USB flash drive you can put it on that rather than a CD. Using unetbootin or similar software.

 

Ok I'm back, thought I had a window of time where I would be free to pursue this, but.....u know how it goes.

I had noticed that the problematic Application Data folder on the portable seemed to be a symbolic link to the C:\Users\All Users because SOME of the replicated subfolders are also found there (eg a system folder named {7B6BA59A-FB0E-4499-8536-A7420338BF3B}. This is also consistent with the folder structure below the self titled c_drive_transfer folder that I had originally created on the portable drive to do the backup. It looks like:

c_drive_transfer
--->uyti7trf (a folder I renamed during previous deletion attempts)
------>All Users
--------->Application Data
-------------->Application Data
.
.
(now 19 deep)
-------------------------------------------------------->Application Data

Given that, I began to think that a new O/S installed on say a flash drive might just be able to solve the problem if for no other reason than that the symbolic link should no longer point to a valid Drive/Path.

Incidentally I had tried the IObit option prior to ever making this post, was not successful, IObit reported no locked files in any part of that directory structure

The link that tgell posted to video demo of taking ownership of the drive wasn't immediately useful (A- I want the drive to remain as portable as possible, and don't want issues to arise when I say take ownership on my laptop, and then try to do stuff with the drive connected to another PC, and B - as I had indicated before there have been multiple cases where the propagation of ownership assigment fails)

BUT that video did lead me to a couple of other videos (by useless tech geek wannabe's) where I DID catch on to a link and other forum post about MalwareBytes File Assassin...that does seem like an option from what I read.

SO - here's what I will do over the next 2 days -
1) Try file assassin
2) Since ownership of the portable drive is reportedly a somewhat unexpected "S-1-5-21-1757981266-115176313-839522115-1003" I WILL try the route of taking ownership and see where that gets me.

In the meantime if one of the 2 of you could elaborate on the approach to using Puppy, or post a few links where I can read up on it myself, if the above is unsuccessful, I will go that route - I kinda have a warm n fuzzy confidence that WILL be a definite solution.

Thx again

 

Actually, sach2's unetbootin link seems sufficient for the time being, don't waste any time elaborating on the Puppy aspect (unless you really think there's something important I might need to know).

One question though...why Puppy as opposed to what seems to be a multitude of other choices?

Thx

 

I would download Puppy based on Ubuntu. I prefer Puppy because it is fairly small, compatible with a bunch of hardware, and automatically logs you in as root.

Here is a pretty good link on its use. It shows how to recover files but it shows the file manager. Deleting is basically like Windows. Right click and select.

Good Luck.

 

Post editing time limit has passed or I would have just added this tidbit to my most recent one...

FileAssassin not an option, does not work on folders - now taking drive ownership to see how that goes

 

AND not too much to my surprise, that does not work. Ownership fails to propagate to the lower levels of that problematic folder, as a result I do not end up having permissions to delete (or access) it, then I get several other error popup dialogs, some of which have to do with the path names of some of the files I might have access to being too long, and in the end the damn lowest level Applications Data folder replicated itself yet again....like I said, not surprising...

unetbootin now downloaded, Ubuntu based Puppy linux ISO coming in now will report on results or issues in the very near future

Tx

 

Just a note. You are right in determining that Application Data is a symbolic link.

It links to %userprofile%\AppData\.

http://www.computerperformance.co.uk/vista/vista_appdata.htm

 

Oh YEAH!!!!

Problem solved...burned lupu-528.005.iso to CD with ImgBurn, (FYI to future potrential readers, unetbootin not req`d for this...tool helps create bootable flash keys, not CDs) changed BIOS default boot order, rebooted...Puppy self configured extremely well.

Plugged in USB portable drive, and on 1st attempt it could not mount properly, so drive was mounted read only...unmounted and re-mounted, had full access, and deleted the entire problematic directory structure.

Shutdown, changed BIOS boot order on restart, and all is well.

Thanx guys...go to your local bar and tell them Randy said the next round is on him (and if that works, post here and I`ll try it too!!! heheh)

Cheers and thanx again!

 

Glad you got it sorted. Thanks for the feedback. Puppy Rules!!! :-D