Author Topic: Old windows installation won't delete (Read 6346 times)

chimera15 · « **on:** Sun, 20 February 2011, 05:56:38 »

Alright, I've looked all over the web, and had no luck finding a solution to this. I know there are a lot of really knowledgeable people here that might at least be able to help me work through this.

I have a 250gb xp system drive that I'm trying to get down to less than 30gb so I can transfer the system onto an older ssd I have. I've eliminated everything unnecessary and got it down to about 40gb. On this drive I had a backup of a Vista install which I no longer use. I've deleted everything from this backup except the windows folder which is now about 12gb. Nothing I've tried will remove this backup windows folder from the drive. I've tried unlocker, tried taking ownership, booted the drive as a secondary non system drive, and all the suggested things I've been able to find on the web, but nothing will allow me to delete this folder.

I think maybe the only solution may be to boot up in linux or something and erase it that way? What would I need to be able to delete a folder on an ntfs windows installation in linux? Would linux, or maybe even dos keep me from deleting the drive because of hidden/ntfs protected files?

What commands would I need to use?

ch_123 · « **Reply #1 on:** Sun, 20 February 2011, 05:59:51 »

Ubuntu has NTFS support out of the box. I use it for copying over Windows folders when backing stuff up.

chimera15 · « **Reply #2 on:** Sun, 20 February 2011, 06:15:43 »

Alright, so ubuntu should work. Anyone know a windows solution to this problem by chance?

You can make an Ubuntu boot cd right?

J888www · « **Reply #3 on:** Sun, 20 February 2011, 06:39:01 »

I find booting Ubuntu from USB to be more convenient than from cd.

chimera15 · « **Reply #4 on:** Sun, 20 February 2011, 07:12:20 »

Tried to make an ubuntu boot cd. Wouldn't boot on the machine I wanted to use. Don't have a spare usb drive. One of the reasons I always have difficulty with Linux. It never seems to work on any of my machines out of the box. Got all kinds of fatal errors.

I've got it installed on an old laptop of mine, but need to find my sata usb adapter. Then hope that Ubuntu will recognize that.

bugfix · « **Reply #5 on:** Sun, 20 February 2011, 07:58:39 »

Errr, did you choose your CD Drive to be the primary booting device?

Ekaros · « **Reply #6 on:** Sun, 20 February 2011, 08:22:53 »

I just installed Xubuntu on USB, easy as anything, just download the .iso and the USBinstaller. 2GB usb stick needed though... Live CDs should work too. MBR might need some twinking on your project, don't realy know...

nanu · « **Reply #7 on:** Sun, 20 February 2011, 08:41:04 »

+1 on liveCD isos. Years ago, I used gparted, since that was the best thing for casual sysadmin noobs. I had mixed success, but something like this might let you mount drives so you can delete things.

I've experienced similar frustration with anything Linux, and the negative feedback mechanism of subsequently avoiding it whenever possible has reinforced my non-participation.

kill will · « **Reply #8 on:** Sun, 20 February 2011, 09:39:18 »

format c

keyboardlover · « **Reply #9 on:** Sun, 20 February 2011, 10:04:23 »

+ 1 for ubuntu boot usb drive...always had trouble with burned cds. Anyway once you get it up and running it's so freakin' easy it's rediculous.

keyboardlover · « **Reply #10 on:** Sun, 20 February 2011, 10:17:01 »

You don't have to do any commands on the linux boot drive. It's all GUI based. When I say it's ridiculously easy, it really is. I saved my friends computer this way.

chimera15 · « **Reply #11 on:** Sun, 20 February 2011, 10:42:23 »

Quote from: ripster;298238

Backup the 30G you need and format that sucker.

Easier than learning sudo commands.

Backing it up isn't going get me anywhere...

The 30g is empty. I upgraded the system that was on that to a larger ssd. I'm trying to put the system from another laptop which had a 250g normal drive(which was clicking) in it which is now down to 40g, and would be down to 28g, so I could then transfer it over if I could delete the darn windows folder from an old backup. Backing something up is what caused this. I'm never backing up anything again. lol

Actually I'm using Acronis now, I think there's a way to delete the backups from within acronis, but I think this was a norton Ghost backup or an imager I no longer use, so not sure how to get rid of it from whatever made it.

keyboardlover · « **Reply #12 on:** Sun, 20 February 2011, 10:50:17 »

Ubuntu usb boot drive. Just do it (like Tiger Woods). You'll thank us later.

ch_123 · « **Reply #13 on:** Sun, 20 February 2011, 12:04:50 »

I don't think there's anything particularly difficult about using a CD for booting. Saves you having to fiddle around with third party USB tools, just use the built in Windows ISO burner, or your burning software of choice.

EverythingIBM · « **Reply #14 on:** Sun, 20 February 2011, 12:52:29 »

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.

chimera15 · « **Reply #15 on:** Sun, 20 February 2011, 13:36:42 »

Quote from: ripster;298326

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

Wipe what? The 250g? I don't think you get the point.

Also I didn't have trouble burning or booting to the Ubuntu install. It just wouldn't start. There were all kinds of errors and it froze. I doubt it would help if it was in usb form either. In my experience it's just cause Linux sucks with drivers.

chimera15 · « **Reply #16 on:** Sun, 20 February 2011, 14:07:48 »

Quote from: EverythingIBM;298332

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.

Already tried all this. Unless you know of a way to take ownership of 10000 file folders at once, it's not even worth a try either. But I tried to take ownership and even still you couldn't delete them.

Also tried booting into safe mode on a machine that wasn't running on the same drive even and still wouldn't let me delete anything.

I was reading a bit. It's got something to do with how Vista installs itself and locks those folders and files with ntsf protections of some kind. Never heard of anything like this before. Even unlockers and pre boot deleters that normally take out virusus and such, and looks at all the things that might be locking a file or folder is unable to delete anything. I've tried attrib functions that usually takes out any hidden or locked files in multiple folders, and they didn't have any effect either. Really frustrated with the whole thing, but need to have it done. It seems ridiculous there's no way to do this.

Even if these processes work it's impossible to perform in any reasonable time on the thousands of folders and files that need to have it done to them unless you know commands to do it or some kind of utility. I haven't found any.

chimera15 · « **Reply #17 on:** Sun, 20 February 2011, 14:09:39 »

Quote from: ripster;298355

You backup files you want to save. You format old drive. You copy back to drive.

I don't want to redo all the drivers and programs I have installed on this machine. Will take me a week at least. Also it's an older tabletpc and getting all the cursor and handwriting settings right with all the programs is a major pain in the but. It'll be a lot easier to take the steps necessary to get rid of the windows directory.

The 30gb that's left on the drive once the folder is gone represents probably 20-30 programs, all that have settings specific to them and are set up specifically to work that way. I probably have at least several months, 8 hours a day working on this machine and have it set up exactly how I want it.

I also have things like alky for windows that lets me run a Vista sidebar in xp, and theme customizations that were just a pain to get right just with the basic installation. Naw, that's not an option.

godly_music · « **Reply #18 on:** Sun, 20 February 2011, 17:26:03 »

The easiest way: Download a Linux rescue CD such as Parted Magic, boot from cd, wipe partition/drive.

bigpook · « **Reply #19 on:** Sun, 20 February 2011, 19:25:26 »

Quote from: godly_music;298461

The easiest way: Download a Linux rescue CD such as Parted Magic, boot from cd, wipe partition/drive.

Or download SytemRescue, or Knoppix or just about any linux live cd.

fdisk the drive, its the only way to be sure...

chimera15 · « **Reply #20 on:** Sun, 20 February 2011, 20:09:13 »

That was interesting Ripster. I had tried the icacls command but had never seen takedown before.

I got the ubuntu cd working on an older 775 socket machine of mine and it deleted it with no problem. Linux really is the king of disk management. I was surprised it even let me access my ipod touch as a full on disk which Windows doesn't seem to want to let you do without special utilities.

Thanks everyone for your help.

That ability to browse and edit, add, and change ipod directories is almost worth keeping a full on linux machine on hand and running, if I used my ipod much anymore.

godly_music · « **Reply #21 on:** Sun, 20 February 2011, 21:36:23 »

The opposite, rather. The iPod is worth keeping when you're running Rockbox on it. Unfortunately, I don't think it works with that particular model.

typo · « **Reply #22 on:** Mon, 21 February 2011, 12:40:28 »

boot from a dos floppy with ntfs4dos. then use the deltree command. that is a lot easier to do if linux is not your tongue. you may also have to use the attrib command.

edit: oops i see you already managed to do it. well, hope this info is helpful for someone else then.

bpiphany · « **Reply #23 on:** Mon, 21 February 2011, 14:40:00 »

floppy?

chimera15 · « **Reply #24 on:** Mon, 21 February 2011, 19:32:51 »

I have a usb floppy to jump start some of my tabletpcs that don't have cd roms. The usb cd rom I have needs drivers to work, and so I have to boot to a windows 98 floppy with it on.

I was thinking of this as well, but I thought that if booting into safe mode didn't work why would dos. Linux turned out to be pretty nice and I learned some other stuff with it as well. I'm actually getting to like Linux. I'll probably turn one of my oqo's into one. There are a lot of advantages that it has over windows I'm really coming to learn.

It can access ipod directories and actually make an ipod a useful disk,
It's better to use for sniffing and network penetration in general.
It's better to program teensy controllers with for the keyboard I'm still trying to build.
It's generally faster.
Better for servers and networking tasks in general.

The only thing of course is that it's difficult to get drivers for stuff and it won't I guess run every windows program of which I mainly use, although I guess there are ways around this?

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.

hmm http://www.junauza.com/2010/02/how-to-install-adobe-photoshop-on.html

chimera15 · « **Reply #25 on:** Mon, 21 February 2011, 19:53:29 »

Not all of it. Just the ridiculous priced ones. For instance for painting/drawing/sketching I bought legit Sai and a Japanese paint program called 4paint that rule photoshop at 1/10th the cost. I actually don't use photoshop that much, mainly I use sai, 4paint, or other less well known programs that are way better.

The only thing photoshop really has over them is filters.

Other than that I use a lot of free stuff.

There's surprisingly a lot of free open source windows programs out there that are really useful.

If you're talking about games that I admitted to, well that's another matter.

Actually I have bought versions of Photoshop when student discounts were available and it was a really good version. For instance I bought Photoshop 7 and used it for like 10 years for a lot of work.

If I actually use software to make money with I usually buy the program.

keyboardlover · « **Reply #26 on:** Mon, 21 February 2011, 20:16:08 »

Quote from: chimera15

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.

chimera15 · « **Reply #27 on:** Mon, 21 February 2011, 20:22:36 »

Quote from: keyboardlover;299085

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.

Well right, what you said. But it's clear based on geekbench evidence that Linux machines do score higher than windows ones with the exact same hardware setup.

Whether you want to interpret that as the system just using less resources of what's available, as opposed to just calling it faster is really just semantics in my mind.

typo · « **Reply #28 on:** Mon, 21 February 2011, 21:05:27 »

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.

chimera15 · « **Reply #29 on:** Mon, 21 February 2011, 21:34:52 »

Quote from: typo;299104

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 have never stolen, except as a kid I stole a hot wheels car and got caught and caught hell from my parents.

I don't consider sharing software for personal, non professional use theft. Certainly not on the receiving end, and neither do the courts.

ch_123 · « **Reply #30 on:** Tue, 22 February 2011, 13:45:24 »

Quote from: chimera15;299065

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.

This is done with WINE, which provides a compatibility layer within Linux which allows Windows software to run on it. How successfully it does this varies enormously, and depends on a huge number of variables - someone may have be running the same OS and same version of WINE and have some piece of software run perfectly, and yet on another machine it will fail.

Krita is a decent enough graphics software for Linux. Definitely nothing is up to par with Photoshop though.

godly_music · « **Reply #31 on:** Tue, 22 February 2011, 19:29:39 »

I can second that. There's definitely an experience gap when Wine is concerned. People I know can run everything they want with it. I tried it with 3 different games and it never worked.

pm_ · « **Reply #32 on:** Wed, 23 February 2011, 01:09:47 »

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.

ch_123 · « **Reply #33 on:** Wed, 23 February 2011, 04:30:43 »

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.

chimera15 · « **Reply #34 on:** Wed, 23 February 2011, 04:57:28 »

Quote from: pm_;299693

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.

I definitely did part one of this. I honestly can't say that I followed these exact instructions but I did some version of this. It didn't work in my case. I've done this process before to delete other folders and had varying success. It's definitely not a full solution in some cases. It's also fairly easy to get confused with what user to select and such which may be part of it.

There were other undeletable folders that weren't the windows directory as well, so I did it on the entire "Backup" folder. It might have had something to do with that it was a backup and not just a normal install why it was so hard also.

It's good this is here for a reference though. If it happens again I'll come back and try this exactly. I'm not sure I noticed the propagate checkbox before or not.

pm_ · « **Reply #35 on:** Wed, 23 February 2011, 15:40:43 »

Ripster, that wast just, simply, awesome.

pm_ · « **Reply #36 on:** Wed, 23 February 2011, 15:48:21 »

Quote from: ch_123;299728

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.

Linux has it's uses, but overall, that statement is just simply untrue. If I don't use Linux at all and don't have a bootable CD or flashdrive available, I have to go find one, convert it to the appropriate medium, and reboot several times etc..

Of course Microsoft was simply too lazy to have the system just check if it's an active/old installation or not, then decide whether to allow you to perform a simple delete on the folder or not.

While they both piss me off in certain areas, I'm going to stop now as I don't feel like having some big long perpetual argument about the pros and cons of each OS.

News:

Author Topic: Old windows installation won't delete (Read 6346 times)