Backup the 30G you need and format that sucker.
Easier than learning sudo commands.
Ah, but this screen is SO aesthetically pleasing.
Wipe that sucker cleaner than Obama's birth certificate. I always Quick Format in case I screw up and need to recover something.Show Image(http://blogs.technet.com/blogfiles/aviraj/WindowsLiveWriter/Windows7VHDBootSupporT_1B5F/Disk%20Management_thumb.png)
uhhh... there's a way to delete folders that windows won't allow you.
#1 you can take "ownership" of the file and delete it or modify it (this has to be done with system files). Just google "taking ownership to delete files" or something like that.
#2 safemode usually lets you delete files.
Don't know why everyone is suggesting linux when there's a much easier solution in windows itself.
You backup files you want to save. You format old drive. You copy back to drive.
The easiest way: Download a Linux rescue CD such as Parted Magic, boot from cd, wipe partition/drive.
It's generally faster.
That's not really correct. While it's true that Linux has a smaller physical footprint and runs much fewer background processes than a windows installation, due to overall OS design (memory management, etc.) no speed test I'm aware of has determined that Linux is actually faster performance-wise than Windows.
dos is much different than safemode. safemode on the nt kernal was no longer dos.
i would take a pretty good guess it would have worked.
oh btw, thou shalt not steal! since i publish software i am rather found of that one.
I worked with a guy who was a Linux fanboy and he told me he could run pc programs on linux, but not sure exactly what he meant by that. If for instance I could run photoshop on Linux, or other paint programs besides gimp I might not have a reason to use Windows.
EverythingIBM was on the right track, and you could have done this without using an Ubuntu boot CD. It's 3am, I'm bored and you've given me an excuse to type on my blues :tongue:, and this way more people might know how to actually resolve this in the future. And yes, Windows Vista / 7 has made this unnecessarily difficult in some silly attempt to protect users from themselves.
1. Forcefully take ownership of the old Windows folder, as well as all sufolders and files. It's pretty easy to do, just takes a few sub menus and few minutes for it to modify all the ACLs. Specifically, once you have found the Security tab, click Advanced, select the Owner tab, click the Edit button, select the new owner in the 'Change owner to' box, put a check in the "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects" box, and click Apply. It should be done in a few minutes.
2. Grant yourself Full Permissions to all subfolders and files: Get back to the Security tab, click the Advanced button, click Change Permissions on the Permissions tab, either select the listed user or group (or add it if necessary), click the Edit button, select Full control, in the Apply To box make sure it says "This folder, subfolders, and files", select Ok, select Apply, and wait a few minutes for the permissions to propagate.
3. Delete away.
I've had to do this a few times when working on friends systems cleaning up old data, so I'm sure it works.
Of course, in the time it took the OP to get a working solution, he could have done it the Linux way about 10,000 over, which says a lot about Windows and how ridiculous it makes the most simple tasks.