How to delete the files and folders with the name "???"

[Guest]

Dear all,

My system is WindowsXP French version with SP2.
There's a little problem in my system for long time. It happened when I
converted my partition from NTFS to FAT32. Some files and folders suddenly
changed their name to "???". Fortunately, I have the copies of them. However,
since then, I could not make any operations on them, either deleting. I used
t try scandisk and defragment on the partition, without any effect. Could
someone help me on this issue? (Except format the partition, thanks)
Thank you for your time.

Best, zh

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, zh.

Open a "DOS" window (Command Prompt). Navigate to the folder that holds
your problem file or folder. At the prompt, type: dir /x

This should produce a directory of the folder, as usual, but with an extra
column before the Long File Names (LFNs) showing the Short File Name (SFN,
also known as the 8.3 filename) for each LFN that is not also a legal SFN.
Then use the SFN to delete the file or remove the folder:
del <SFN> or
rd <SFN>

If any folder holds nothing that you want to keep, you can delete the folder
entirely, with all its files and subfolders, by using the /s switch with the
rd (Remove Directory) command, like this:
rd <SFN> /s

As usual in the "DOS" window, type any command followed by /? to see a
mini-Help file listing all the switches and parameters available with that
command: dir /?

Like most Americans, I'm not multi-lingual, so I'm not at all familiar with
the French version of Windows, but I think it should work the same way.

If it doesn't work for you, please post back with exactly what you tried and
the results you saw.

RC