cannot delete empty folders - until 'later'

[John John]

This is a new HD set up in a new system some months ago. Migration to this
new system is forced now by the previous system hardware regularly
'killing' hard drives for the previous W98/W2K dual boot OS.

The old hard drives are readable for data transfer as slaves in the new
system hardware, and would probably run ok in new hardware, if I had
back-up hardware that would still be gracious enough to run W98.

I'm beginning to think that chasing down hardware for the latter option
might be smarter, if the new W2K OS is going to continue be a daily
headache, in simple operations like data file manipulation.

Believe me, I have been using Windows 2000 for many years on many
different computers and the problem that you describe is not very
common! I have worked with folders containing thousands and tens of
thousands of files (NTFS) and I have never had any such problems
deleting folders, be they full or empty! I am out of ideas as to the
cause of the problem, if I think of anything else I'll let you know.
Maybe the application that created the files and folders is at fault?

John

 

[legg]

So you aren't allowed to delete any folders at all? Anywhere? Until
you reboot the machine?

If I copy the folder that cannot be deleted to a new location, I can delete
the copy.

If I copy any folder into a new location, I can delete the original.

If I recopy the same folder back to the old location, I can delete the
original copy.

If I cut the contents from a folder and paste it into another folder
elsewhere, with the same (or a different) name, I am prevented from
deleting the old empty folder.

RL

 

[John John]

As it is, the same behavior is evidenced when manipulating files and
folders on/within the T: archival FAT32 partition of the second hard drive,
using the presently misbehaving W2K OS installed in the first ntfs
partition of the first hard drive.

If nothing else works, this may be the way out:

How to perform an in-place upgrade of Windows 2000
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/292175

What an in-place Windows 2000 upgrade changes and what it does not change
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306952/

John

 

[legg]

Believe me, I have been using Windows 2000 for many years on many
different computers and the problem that you describe is not very
common! I have worked with folders containing thousands and tens of
thousands of files (NTFS) and I have never had any such problems
deleting folders, be they full or empty! I am out of ideas as to the
cause of the problem, if I think of anything else I'll let you know.
Maybe the application that created the files and folders is at fault?

If there are any bright ideas out there, remove nospam from the 'reply to'
address and let me know by e-mail.

Perhaps it might have something to do with the recycle bin or find-fast
indexing, swap or pagefiles, maybe some kind of security/permissions
mis-setting that I'm unaware of.

Can't be too complex as the system is barely loaded with basic
applications, so far. It's nowhere near to serving usefully on my desk -
it's still just a glorified typewriter.

RL

 

[John John]

If I copy the folder that cannot be deleted to a new location, I can delete
the copy.

If I copy any folder into a new location, I can delete the original.

If I recopy the same folder back to the old location, I can delete the
original copy.

If I cut the contents from a folder and paste it into another folder
elsewhere, with the same (or a different) name, I am prevented from
deleting the old empty folder.

What happens if you try to bypass the Recycle Bin? Press and Hold the
<Shift> key when you try to delete the folder, this is a permanent
deletion the folder will not go to the Recycle Bin, it will not be
recoverable. Can the folders be deleted that way?

John

 

[legg]

What happens if you try to bypass the Recycle Bin? Press and Hold the
<Shift> key when you try to delete the folder, this is a permanent
deletion the folder will not go to the Recycle Bin, it will not be
recoverable. Can the folders be deleted that way?

No joy that way either.

RL

 

[John John]

Perhaps it might have something to do with the recycle bin or find-fast
indexing, swap or pagefiles, maybe some kind of security/permissions
mis-setting that I'm unaware of.

Turn off indexing on all drives and see if things improve. I doubt that
the pagefile has anything to do with this. As for the Security
Permissions that would appear to have been eliminated as the folders can
be deleted safer a reboot, and, you say that the problem also exists on
a FAT32 drive, Security Permissions are written in the NTFS metadata,
they cannot be applied on FAT32 volumes, so that seems to be a dead end.
Copy and Paste is in fact a Move operation, so it appears that you
cannot delete empty folders after a Move operation. It's a mystery to
me, I would disable *everything* except the 6 critical Windows Services
and see if the problem persists.

John

 

[legg]

Turn off indexing on all drives and see if things improve. I doubt that
the pagefile has anything to do with this. As for the Security
Permissions that would appear to have been eliminated as the folders can
be deleted safer a reboot, and, you say that the problem also exists on
a FAT32 drive, Security Permissions are written in the NTFS metadata,
they cannot be applied on FAT32 volumes, so that seems to be a dead end.
Copy and Paste is in fact a Move operation, so it appears that you
cannot delete empty folders after a Move operation. It's a mystery to
me, I would disable *everything* except the 6 critical Windows Services
and see if the problem persists.

I set all directories listed in the indexing service to 'No' in the
'include in catalog' option (only C: and some folders on C; were listed)

After reboot, a folder still wouldn't delete after it's contents were
removed, on C:.

Isn't running in safe mode the same as reducing windows services to
critical ones?

RL

 

[John John]

I set all directories listed in the indexing service to 'No' in the
'include in catalog' option (only C: and some folders on C; were listed)

After reboot, a folder still wouldn't delete after it's contents were
removed, on C:.

And you can confirm that the same problem occurs on a FAT32 volume?

Isn't running in safe mode the same as reducing windows services to
critical ones?

It's supposed to.

John

 

[legg]

And you can confirm that the same problem occurs on a FAT32 volume?

Reconfirmed this on the L: partition.
Also retested copying effects. Copying the contents to a new folder leaves
the original undeletable. So it's not just a cutting transfer ('move') that
produces the anomaly.

RL