4 Questions Concerning Chkdsk

[Paul Berkow]

I have an external hard drive which had a folder with 3 sub folders in it
and I wanted to delete the
whole thing.
I right-clicked on it, and then clicked on Delete. It went along and
deleted all the files but near the
end stopped with a message that it could not delete the last subfolder
because there was still a file
in it.
There were no files left in any of the folders, and of course I could not
delete any of the folders.

I ran Chkdsk using the f and x switches. After running Chkdsk, I was
able to delete the folders.

Now for my questions
1. Did I need to run both the f and x switches ? Or would running one
or the other be ok?
2. In the future, should I also run the r switch, or is running the f
switch only - the right way ?
3. If the error message said there was a file in the last sub folder, why
couldn't I see it ?
4. The most important question is - exactly how did Chkdsk remove the lock
(my words) and
allow me to be able to delete the folders ? Did it have something to do
with the fact that the
error message claimed there was still a file in the last folder and
corrected that problem ?

I did a Google for the answers to the above questions, and got zilch.

Thanks for any explanations

 

[WB]

I have an external hard drive which had a folder with 3 sub folders in it
and I wanted to delete the
whole thing.
I right-clicked on it, and then clicked on Delete. It went along and
deleted all the files but near the
end stopped with a message that it could not delete the last subfolder
because there was still a file
in it.
There were no files left in any of the folders, and of course I could not
delete any of the folders.

I ran Chkdsk using the f and x switches. After running Chkdsk, I was
able to delete the folders.

Now for my questions
1. Did I need to run both the f and x switches ? Or would running one
or the other be ok?
2. In the future, should I also run the r switch, or is running the f
switch only - the right way ?
3. If the error message said there was a file in the last sub folder, why
couldn't I see it ?
4. The most important question is - exactly how did Chkdsk remove the
lock (my words) and
allow me to be able to delete the folders ? Did it have something to do
with the fact that the
error message claimed there was still a file in the last folder and
corrected that problem ?

I did a Google for the answers to the above questions, and got zilch.

Thanks for any explanations

1. Run chkdsk with /f switch.
2. /r reads each sector...time consuming unless you suspect errors
3. file with hidden attribute, perhaps.
4. you used /x switch (dismounts volume...all open handles are released)