S
Stephen Wolstenholme
If I try to delete a folder with hundreds of sub folders a Recycling
dialog appears and never completes.
Any ideas?
Steve
dialog appears and never completes.
Any ideas?
Steve
D
Dave-UK
Stephen Wolstenholme said:
How about Shift+Delete ?
S
Stephen Wolstenholme
It's just the same. The only way to get rid of the Recycling dialog is
to force a shutdown.
Steve
H
housetrained
Try deleting it in safe mode
N
Nil
Try deleting it from the command line with the rmdir command:
RMDIR [/S] [/Q] [drive:]path
RD [/S] [/Q] [drive:]path
/S Removes all directories and files in the specified directory
in addition to the directory itself. Used to remove a directory
tree.
/Q Quiet mode, do not ask if ok to remove a directory tree with /S
G
Gene E. Bloch
Shift-Del doesn't use the recycle bin, so what you report seems odd, to
say the least.
R
Robert Sudbury
Sounds like it may be a classic file system corruption.
Chkdsk the volume at reboot, then retry deleting.
Here's a good step-by-step on how to do it:
http://www.w7forums.com/use-chkdsk-check-disk-t448.html
--
[Robert]
__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature
database 5142 (20100524) __________
The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.
http://www.eset.com
__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 5142 (20100524) __________
The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.
http://www.eset.com
Chkdsk the volume at reboot, then retry deleting.
Here's a good step-by-step on how to do it:
http://www.w7forums.com/use-chkdsk-check-disk-t448.html
Stephen Wolstenholme said:
--
[Robert]
__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature
database 5142 (20100524) __________
The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.
http://www.eset.com
__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 5142 (20100524) __________
The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.
http://www.eset.com
R
R. C. White
Hi, Steve.
How long is "never completes"?
Deletion of "hundreds of sub folders" can take much longer than we expect.
I was doing a lot of cleanup last week and deleted several Windows Live Mail
"recovered items" message folders, each with many layers of subfolders.
Sometimes, just a Dir /s (in a Command Prompt window) took 20 minutes or
more to list thousands of empty subfolders. Deletion of those folder trees
would take about as long - or longer.
It may be slightly faster to use the RD (Remove Directory - from days when a
"folder" was a "directory") command. Just "rd c:\<foldername>. You may
want to use rd with the /s switch to remove the directory and all its
subdirectories: rd c:\<foldername> /s If the directory is not empty, you
will need to confirm that Yes you do want to remove the entire tree. (As
usual in a Command Prompt window, type a command followed by /? to see a
mini-Help file listing the switches and parameters available with that
command: rd /?
RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
[email protected]
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64)
How long is "never completes"?
Deletion of "hundreds of sub folders" can take much longer than we expect.
I was doing a lot of cleanup last week and deleted several Windows Live Mail
"recovered items" message folders, each with many layers of subfolders.
Sometimes, just a Dir /s (in a Command Prompt window) took 20 minutes or
more to list thousands of empty subfolders. Deletion of those folder trees
would take about as long - or longer.
It may be slightly faster to use the RD (Remove Directory - from days when a
"folder" was a "directory") command. Just "rd c:\<foldername>. You may
want to use rd with the /s switch to remove the directory and all its
subdirectories: rd c:\<foldername> /s If the directory is not empty, you
will need to confirm that Yes you do want to remove the entire tree. (As
usual in a Command Prompt window, type a command followed by /? to see a
mini-Help file listing the switches and parameters available with that
command: rd /?
RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
[email protected]
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64)
J
johnbee
Stephen Wolstenholme said:
When you delete a file by sending it to the recycling bin, the PC has a bit
of work to do. I can't be bothered to do a lot of experimentation, but, for
example, if you check it's properties you will see that it has a capacity,
which you can change. I mention this because I guess that the size makes a
heckuva lot of difference to the time taken - but I don't know enough about
it to say whether a tiny capacity will speed it up immensely or slow it down
hugely. However I do know enough to say that if there are an increasingly
large number of files in the bin, it will slow down the process
increasingly.
The easiest test I can suggest is to create a huge number of directories and
sub directories, containing lots of files, then delete them. After a while,
pull the plug out. Have a look to see how many it has deleted. Try it a
few times with various time delays, and also have a check on how long it
takes to remove them from the bin.
In other words, I reckon it is just taking a long time because its busy.
G
Gene E. Bloch
Sounds like a recipe for corrupting the drive :-(
J
johnbee
Gene E. Bloch said:
I'm not sure what you mean by corrupting the drive. If errors are caused in
the file system, it will hardly be noticed unless chkdsk is run, which will
correct them and the only affected files will be ones being deleted anyway.
An operating system which can not survive losing the power isn't worth
tuppence. The chap was bothered because it seemed that the system would not
delete a lot of files at once, and I said something about the reason why it
only seemed so, and an easy way for him to convince himself of that
explanation. If I was scared of a computer I'd go and play with a teddy.
S
Stephen Wolstenholme
Just to be clear. The folder, subfolders and files never get deleted
and the Recycling dialog does not close. It was left trying for two
hours and then I had to restart to get rid of the dialog. Examination
of the folder and bin after the restart shows that nothing has been
deleted. If I delete at file or subfolder level there is no problem.
The hang up is just with one folder. Other folders with just as many
subfolders and files go to the bin in seconds. I suspect there is some
property of the folder that Window 7 is having difficulty with but
everything looks normal to me.
Steve
C
Char Jackson
Score:
+1 for Gene
-1 for johnbee
Intentionally pulling the plug on a running OS is about the worst
advice I've seen here in quite awhile.
G
Gene E. Bloch
Score:
+1 for Char Jackson
-1 for johnbee
Heck, it doesn't even have anything to do with the OS - it's a hardware
situation.
J
johnbee
Stephen Wolstenholme said:
They have made me feel guilty for the suggesting the unplug test so I am
replying even though I have not got much of an answer but can make some
comments.
I don't see how having a virus would affect deleting a single folder, but I
have heard of recycle bin viruses. There is supposed to be a known clash
between the bin and some virus protection software but again, I don't see
how that would affect a particular folder. Obviously there could be a
security setting on a file or folder but that should merely generate a
message saying you need permission. I have also heard of problems deleting
corrupted files which lead to a PC hanging. I suppose you could try
altering the properties of the bin so files get deleted rather than binned.
So it could be quite a few things, and might be obscure enough so that you
need a bit of luck to come across someone with the same symptom. I suppose
f you are keen to find out, you could even ask Microsoft as they would of
course get the widest number of queries.
B
Bogey Man
johnbee said:
I have found that when deleting a large number of files from a LIBRARY sub
folder (several thousand pictures) it can appear that the files are not
deleted. However, if I go to the actual folder under my account, the deleted
files are no longer there and have been put in the recycle bin. I have
changed my habit of deleting files from the LIBRARY hierarchy directly and
now delete the files from the folder directly under my account and all works
just fine.