Cannot delete a directory

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jim Hubbard
  • Start date Start date
J

Jim Hubbard

Fool that I am, I left an FTP server (on an XP Pro desktop) open to
anonymous use for about a week, while I was on a customer's site, to make
getting some needed files easier.

All was well until last night. Evidentially someone created a main folder
with a few nested folders inside it last night (undoubtedly to facilitate
file transfers between 2 or more parties of who-knows-what).

When I saw what had been done, I immediately turned off FTP access and
attempted to delete the main directory and its sub-directories. But, when I
tried to delete the main directory I received an error saying that the
directory could not be deleted, and something to the effect that the folder
could not be found.

How is it that I can explore the directory, but XP can't see it to delete
it?

There are no files in any of the sub directories.

I have even tried deleting each folder starting from the bottom folder up.
But that only worked for the first couple of folders. There are 3 left I
can't delete.

The main folder name is "z 62319".

Any ideas?
 
Delete the child folders first then the root folder and don't be viewing the
folder when ya try to delete. And if that don't work try deleting from
dos...
 
I restarted in Safe Mode and did a complete disk check. Took a LONG time,
but no errors were found.

Tried your suggestions but still could not delete the directories.

BUT, if you go into DOS and type "dir /x" to get the short name for the top
directory (in this case it was Z62319~1), you can use that name to delete
the directory from DOS by typing "rd /S Z62319~1" (of course, replace
Z62319~1 with the short file name of your devil folder).

I still don't know what makes XP not able to delete the directory. But DOS
has to use the short name to get rid of it. Before, I was using the long
name in DOS.

Thanks for the pointer!

Jim Hubbard
 
I did the same thing as you did with the anonymous FTP (they transferred
about 6 gigs onto my HD... if my low disk space warning didn't pop up, I
might not have clued in).
I cleaned everything but one empty directory... named "com1" in ftproot. XP
tells me that it is currently in use if I try to delete it from the command
prompt...

Any advice?
Kelly
 
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