Windows XP Undeletable file

[Weyland]

I have a file on my second HD that I can't delete, or set permissions on. All I get is the "Access is denied" box.

I have tried from Exporer, from a command prompt, from a command prompt after stopping the explorer process, in Safe Mode and finally from a floppy boot, all to no avail. The damn thing won't go away!

Can anyone help?

 

[floppybootstomp]

Find out which program it relates to, enter 'msconfig' in the search box, select the startup programs then disable whichever one is using that file.

Then reboot and delete it.

Hopefully, you know what the file relates to, if it's an important part of Windows and you do manage to delete it, it could cause problems.

It may also be a Trojan or Virus in which case it may not be deletable.

But, without any further info, I'm only guessing.

 

[Weyland]

It's called "flash9.ocx", and doesn't scan as infected according to AVG.

It's in the SYSTEM32 dir of the old install of XP that was on this drive when I put in into my machine to transfer some data files to the new install that the machine actually boots from. Therefore it should not be loaded by anything as it's not part of the active install.

And I doubt it's being loaded by anything in the Startup dir - like I said in the first post, I tried booting from a floppy into DOS and still couldn't delete it.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Well..... beats me then

 

[V_R]

flash9.ocx

You know thats part of flash player dont you?

 

[Alf]

If you really want to get rid of it (but as V_R said its part of flash player) give this a try. Remeber some files are locked for good reason and deleting them can render a program unusable.

Unlocker

 

[muckshifter]

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webfor...d=44&catid=184&threadid=1176330&enterthread=y


Have fun ...

 

[Weyland]

You know thats part of flash player dont you?

I kind of gathered that.

However, as I said in my previous posts, the file is in the OLD UNUSED install of XP, rather than the one that I've actually booted from, so deleting it should be fine.

In fact, it's currently the only file left in that Windows directory - all the others deleted fine, so there's no way anything's using it!

EDIT: I just tried the Unlocker program linked above, and that failed as well. Even after rebooting.

That thread was interesting... although I can't use the recommened method - again, this is an HD from another computer I'm just reusing as a second drive in another machine.

I think I'll just give in and reformat it. What a pain, curse you Adobe!

 

[Alf]

well, that would be the better method- better to start from sratch than be bogged down

 

[Weyland]

well, that would be the better method- better to start from sratch than be bogged down

Yeah, but it means I have to find somewhere to copy the 60 GB of data I want to keep on it to while I reformat it!

There isn't enough room on the other HD in this machine, so onto the backup drive it goes... Oh joy, 157 minutes remaining.