Help
I'm using Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 3
I have recently been trying to fix up a friends laptop which is a Compaq Armada M700 and is running on XP Pro during which time I had an external hard drive plugged in which is a 2TB WD My Book Essential.
Now for some reason the laptop (or at least I think it was the laptop) created 2 folders on my external hard drive I believe they contained some sort of system settings like desktop.ini I can't remember exactly at this time but I may be able to find out if neccessary. The only thing I know is these folders didn't have specific names they were just letters and numbers.
I had tried several ways to delete these folders whilst the external drive was plugged into my desktop pc but for some reason it said access denied make sure it's not full, write protected or in use.
Anyway long story short I then reluctantly decided to use MBAM's File Assassin to remove these files, I had never used it before but it worked and they were sent to the desktops recycling bin.
Unfortunately I got the same message (or one very similar) when I tried to empty the recycling bin on the desktop which said:
Cannot remove folder i386: Access is denied.
Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use.
I could not see the files in the recycling bin no matter what I did, so I logged in as an administrator in safe mode without networking, made sure show hidden files was selected and made sure hide system files/folders was unchecked.
Now this is where it gets even more complicated, on the administrators account the recycle bin shows it's empty, but after logging off and logging into the password protected user account the recycle bin is showing it contains something BUT!!! I'm still unable to view the contents of the bin as the files remain hidden.
From here however I was able to use File Assassin again to access RECYCLER and delete individual files but they're very persistent and they keep returning upon restart.
I even created a .bat file to delete RECYCLER on both the user account and the administrators account (although not simultaneously of course) which worked but still the recycle bin on the desktop still showed itself to contain hidden files and it still refused to empty.
I have also tried to use some other methods including Safe mode with command prompt and RUN>>>gpedit to delete RECYCLER but I usually get told the path is wrong or something like that even though I've followed all the instructions perfectly.
I believe the next step if possible may be to take ownership of these elusive files but how do I locate hidden files within a recycling bin??? I've heard of a program called Unlocker as well which apparently unlocks and deletes protected files which I've just found now and will try to use a.s.a.p
BTW I should also mention that the recycle bin only shows to contain files when the external drive is plugged in via usb if I unplug it then the recycle bin thinks it's empty.
As you can see it's quite a strange dillema, I'll be suprised if anyone can figure this one out or even understand a word of what I've just said, but I hate to be beaten by something so ridiculous and as trivial as this. I'm sure I COULD learn to live with it but where's the FUN in that???
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