Can't delete corrupt file

[Galen]

In

Thanks for the links. I downloaded from the Microsoft site, and
started with the disks. They did the same thing as when I started up
with the Windows disk. I tried repair console again and received the
Access Denied message when I tried to get to the folder.

Hmm... I used Google to try to find an answer that I haven't given you
already but this is what I came up with:

http://www.adras.com/Can-t-delete-corrupt-file.t1070-1.html

Look familiar? Okay, we're NOT out of options yet.

First try this:

http://helpdesk.kixtart.org/KixUtilsTasks.asp

If that doesn't get rid of it then we may be in a bit of trouble, yes I know
it's for NT but it works well with XP. Read the help and the site for usage
as it's a command line based tool.

Okay, now if that doesn't work, check your permissions/attributes. If you
open the cmd prompt and navigate to the directory and then view the
directory is the file listed? If not then type this in that same screen (in
the appropriate directory) attrib -h -s -r ID_011.dpc which should then show
it. If it's STILL not visable you might try navigating to the correct
directory (the CD command) and then del *.dpc assuming that there's no other
files with that file extension that you want to keep in that directory.

Heh, you've got me a bit stumped and though we're not entirely out of
options here we are starting to run out of things that I can think of
trying.

Galen

 

[Daniel E. Namay]

Hi. Read through the thread & noted you couldn't get into safemode w/F8
key. Try getting into SafeMode again by clicking on START then RUN.
Then type MSCONFIG. When the window opens, click on the BOOT.INI tab
and check the SAFEBOOT box and the MINIMAL... button. Then click OK.
It'll ask you if you want to reboot. It SHOULD boot into SafeMode.

When you're done in SafeMode, do the same, but click on NORMAL START-UP
on the GENERAL tab.

Hopefully you'll be able to delete the file there.

Good luck.

Dan Namay

 

[Guest]

Hi Galen. After two days I figured out how to work with Kixtart (I've never
worked with command lines before). Unfortunately, after all the excitement,
it didn't help. I reveived the following error message: Failed.
GetLastError<>=1392. I looked it up and the explanation was "corrupt file".

I also tried the permissions/attributes suggestion. I was able to see the
file right away when I navigated to the directory. I followed your steps
anyways to see if it would help, but I received the same old message that the
file was corrupt.

I'm sorry this is taking so much of your effort, but I truly do appreciate
your help. Thank you.

 

[Guest]

Thanks. I followed your suggestion and booted in Safe mode, but I was still
unable to delete the file.

 

[Galen]

In

so much of your effort, but I truly do
appreciate your help. Thank you.

No, no, no... Don't be sorry. The more difficult the problem the more likely
I am to enjoy it. Above and beyond this you've been very decent at trying
the individual choices and trying to work with us and giving all of the
information that you have available to you. I've no complaints other than
the fact that we haven't managed to figure this out yet.

I'm going to do two things. The first is suggest that you try to enable NTFS
support for DOS and use a standard boot disk. Right now, as I'm writting
this, I'm looking for a way to accomplish this that's easy.

The second thing that I'm going to do is take this thread and give it a good
summary and post it to another private list that I'm a member of and see if
there's any MVPs who can make heads or tails of it. We've tried just about
everything that I can think of short of formatting and to be frank that's
not an options for something so simple as a corrupt file. Then again we
should have been able to delete this file already and the fact that we can't
do so is really bothersome to me and I can only imagine how upsetting it
would be to you. I'd hate to think that you just ended up leaving it there.

Let me see... You've defragged, you've checked the disk for errors, you've
tried to delete it from recovery console, you've gone ahead and made sure
the file wasn't hidden nor protected in any other way, you've used third
party tools (including trying to move it on boot) to delete it, and more but
it's still not deleting. Did I miss anything else? Let's see... Above and
beyond that you've tried to do all of the above in safe mode. Which, of
course, means that you didn't have anything like virus protection stopping
you from doing this. You're not getting an error about ownership and have
taken ownership of the file. You've run a complete chkdsk with the
appropriate switches.

Okay, so what haven't you done? Well the main thing that you haven't done at
this point would be to use a plain old startup disk and go in that way.
There's a couple of choices for this but we're going to try to find the
safest way. Have you downloaded the startup disks from Microsoft? There's 6
of them and there's a link at the bootdisk.com site for them or there's some
links in an earlier post. You can try those. I think, I've never used them,
they have the ability to function like DOS disks with NTFS support. Don't,
of course, do the format options... But you could use them and navigate to
the correct directory and delete them. You've tried through the recovery
console so this is about all that I've left to try.

Here's some software that you'd have to pay for that would allow you to
read/write (and delete) files on an NTFS formatted drive with MS-DOS. There
seems to be a trial available which you could use perhaps?

http://www.purenetworking.net/Products/NTFSProfessional/NTFSProfessional.htm

I don't know anything about it, I'll go so far as to download it and make a
copy of it and try it if you need that much help but they probably have good
help files. I'm also not sure if the trial version is a full version or if
it's crippled in some way. There may be other utilities that will do the
same thing but I haven't found a free one yet. I'll keep looking, in fact
I'll devote the day to it as I've nothing better to do and there's nothing
else that you haven't tried already.

Winternals has a good reputation and they have another version here:

http://www.winternals.com/products/repairandrecovery/index.asp?pid=ap#ntfsdosprofessional

I don't know about a trial for it, I think you'd have to request an
evaluation CD which, if I recall, is fully functional but time locked. The
time lock isn't important as you'd only need it for a little while and the
application has a great reputation.

Note that the first link that is up there is one that I just went to,
entered my email address and name, and got a 404 page but that may be a
temporary problem at their end or even one due to the proxy that I'm using
at this point. There are, of course, other options available and these two
companies aren't the only ones who make this sort of software.

Yet another option would be BartPE which uses your Windows XP disk to make a
CD that works like a bootable operating system from CD. You can read more
about it here:

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

Hopefully one of these solutions is what you're looking for. I will post
this to a private email list full of MVPs who will, hopefully, offer any
additional thoughts and ideas.

Galen

 

[Galen]

In Galen <[email protected]> had this to say:

Okay...

From Robear:

Has he tried uninstalling Turbo Tax and then trying the delete? That makes a
good deal of sense and is worth trying out to see if it will enable you to
delete the file.

And:

HijackThis (HT) http://forum.aumha.org/downloads/hijackthis.exe has a tool
to delete a file on reboot. Might be worth a try.

HT: Config > Misc Tools > Delete a file on reboot.

Both are worth a shot.

From R. C. White:

Reworded by me. Boot to safe mode and, using the CMD prompt again, try to
delete it with the remove directory command like you had before but try it
in safe mode if you didn't try it in safe mode before. It's worth trying and
might be the key you need.

Let's see... That's all that I've had posted so far but there's likely to be
more added as more of the MVPs see it and read this thread. They're from
across the globe so there's no telling what time zone they're in and when
they'll see the email. Please, when you do get this deleted, let me/us know
what it was that you did to get rid of it. You're not the only one to post a
problem after using Turbo Tax software.

I don't usually recommend specific software or sites by name and this is
heading into an off topic type of conversation when I post this but, in the
past, I've used a website for my taxes and have found that they got all of
the deductions right and that they were pretty well organized. The fee is
less than buying software and any forms can be printed out from right there
on the server. It's also, of course, a secure site. I'm not recommending any
particular site for you but I've had great luck with using web-based tax
filing solutions in the past. You can, of course, use any site you'd like
but it means that you won't have to install additional software. At first I
had a link in there but I've gone back and edited it out. I try to avoid
recommending specific solutions/sites for this type of thing, mostly because
should you have a bad experience at a site that I'd recommended I'd not want
to be held accountable in your eyes.

Once again, don't worry about taking too much of anyone's time.

Galen
--

"My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me
the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am
in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial
stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for
mental exaltation." -- Sherlock Holmes

 

[Galen]

In

In Galen <[email protected]> had this to say:

Okay...

From Robear:

"Oops! Forgot the most important part: After selecting the file to be
deleted, leave HijackThis open while rebooting. (Sorry)"

LOL That's about all the additional ideas we've had crop up in there. Let us
know if it's worked or not so that should we face this again we'll be able
to solve it more rapidly.

Galen

--

"My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me
the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am
in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial
stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for
mental exaltation." -- Sherlock Holmes

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Racer1.

I'm getting into this thread late. You've already tried some of the things
I've suggested to Galen, but let's back up a bit and be sure we're on the
same page.

(Just for the record, you ARE an administrator of this computer, right? And
logged on as an administrator? A short basic description of your computer
might assure us that we do, in fact, have a correct mental picture of your
situation: make and model, how much RAM, number and type of HDs and how
they are partitioned and formatted, whether the Pro or Home edition of WinXP
and whether SP2 is installed. I don't see any of that information in the
thread so far. Sometimes we are very deep into a thread before we learn
that some of our basic assumptions were wrong and we've been headed down a
blind alley all along. And trying to lead the user down that wrong path.
But he doesn't see what we think he sees and both he and we just get more
lost. So let's make sure we know where we are starting from.)

After loading Turbo Tax a couple of weeks ago, I started getting an error

I doubt TurboTax had anything to do with your problem.

I started getting an error
when trying to open Outlook 2003. It stated that a file ID_011.dpc was
corrupt. I tried to reinstall over Outlook and even tried to uninstall
Outlook, but every time it came to that one file, everything would stop.
Finally, I deleted everything except the file, and renamed the folder that
it
was in. This allowed me to reinstall Outlook with no problem.

ID-011.DPC is a valid file from Microsoft, a part of Office 2003. It should
be only 575 bytes and be dated 07/28/2003. It should be in \Program
Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\1033. It should not have any attributes
set; that is, it should NOT be Hidden, System or Read-only. It should not
have any readable text in it; the DOS command "type id_011.dpc" should
produce nothing but apparent gibberish on your screen with, perhaps, a few
audible beeps. If you open it in Notepad, you should similarly see only
"garbage". This does not mean the file is corrupt; it just means that it is
in binary code, not a human language.

You say you've now reinstalled Outlook - into another folder, no doubt. Can
you copy the new ID_011.dpc from that new Office11\1033 folder over the old
"corrupted" copy? Using either Explorer or "DOS"?

In another message you said, "I have been trying to work on this all day,
but unfortunately, I don't know enough to make this work. I was unable to
find a download for a boot disk with NTFS support. I tried numerous Win 98
boot disks, and none of them let me navigate away from the a: drive.
(invalid drive). The only mention of NTFS was for a download that allowed
me to view and copy NTFS files. There was no option to delete or get to a
DOS prompt."

You should not need a boot diskette or a Win98 disk. You haven't said, but
I assume you are using NTFS. WinXP is happy with either FAT or NTFS, but
neither MS-DOS nor Win9x/ME can read, write, boot from or even SEE an NTFS
volume. There are third-party programs that allow MS-DOS to work with NTFS,
but you should not need any of those. WinXP has a Command Prompt, which we
often refer to as the "DOS" window, but with "DOS" in quotes to remind us
that it is only an emulation, not true MS-DOS. When in this "DOS" window,
we can use DOS-like commands to work with both FAT and NTFS volumes. Maybe
that's why many users say that the WinXP Command Prompt is "a better DOS
than DOS". There are several ways to get to this "DOS" window; one is to
click Start | Run and enter: cmd.exe

You've tried a lot of things but I'd like to go through my suggestion once
more, step by step. That's the rd command in a "DOS" window. I know you've
tried this, but it's not clear exactly HOW you tried it.

Boot into WinXP and open a "DOS" window. You said you've isolated your
problem file in a folder by itself, but you haven't told us the name or
location of that folder, so I'll use C:\OldOffice\id_011.dpc as an example.
From any prompt in the "DOS" window, type:

rd C:\OldOffice /s /q

That is the rd (or rmdir, for Remove Directory) command to remove the
OldOffice folder from C:\, the Root directory of Drive C:. The /s switch
says to remove the entire OldOffice folder, including all files and
subfolders within it. The /q switch says to go ahead, without asking for
confirmation. (In the "DOS" window, type any command followed by "/?" to
see a mini-Help file showing the switches and parameters available with that
command; for example: rd /?)

That's enough for now. When you've tried that rd command, post back and
tell us exactly what you did, step by step, and exactly what results you
saw. Please include the entire path name of your problem file. If there
was an error message, please quote it verbatim.

RC

 

[Guest]

Okay, so what haven't you done? Well the main thing that you haven't done at
this point would be to use a plain old startup disk and go in that way.
There's a couple of choices for this but we're going to try to find the
safest way. Have you downloaded the startup disks from Microsoft? There's 6
of them and there's a link at the bootdisk.com site for them or there's some
links in an earlier post. You can try those. I think, I've never used them,
they have the ability to function like DOS disks with NTFS support. Don't,
of course, do the format options... But you could use them and navigate to
the correct directory and delete them. You've tried through the recovery
console so this is about all that I've left to try.

When I did this, I ended up at the screen where you choose to reinstall or
enter the repair console. This was the same as using the XP disk.

Here's some software that you'd have to pay for that would allow you to
read/write (and delete) files on an NTFS formatted drive with MS-DOS. There
seems to be a trial available which you could use perhaps?

I also received the 404 page.

I don't know about a trial for it, I think you'd have to request an
evaluation CD which, if I recall, is fully functional but time locked. The
time lock isn't important as you'd only need it for a little while and the
application has a great reputation.

I requested a trial CD. I guess it will be here in a few weeks.

Yet another option would be BartPE which uses your Windows XP disk to make a
CD that works like a bootable operating system from CD. You can read more
about it here:

I am still working on this and learning about the product.

Thanks.

Robin

 

[Guest]

Yes, I have uninstalled TurboTax. Unfortunately, it didn't make any
difference in letting me delete the file. I will try the Hijack. Thanks.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for joining in. Here are the answers to your questions:

(Just for the record, you ARE an administrator of this computer, right? And
logged on as an administrator? A short basic description of your computer
might assure us that we do, in fact, have a correct mental picture of your
situation: make and model, how much RAM, number and type of HDs and how
they are partitioned and formatted, whether the Pro or Home edition of WinXP
and whether SP2 is installed. I don't see any of that information in the
thread so far. Sometimes we are very deep into a thread before we learn
that some of our basic assumptions were wrong and we've been headed down a
blind alley all along. And trying to lead the user down that wrong path.
But he doesn't see what we think he sees and both he and we just get more
lost. So let's make sure we know where we are starting from.)

Yes, I am the administrator, and I am logged in as the administrator. I
have a custom built PC, 480 MB RAM, Pentium 4 2.40 GHz, 1 HD with 74.5 GB, I
don't know how it is partitioned or how to find out. I run Windows XP
Professional and SP2 is installed.

ID-011.DPC is a valid file from Microsoft, a part of Office 2003. It should
be only 575 bytes and be dated 07/28/2003. It should be in \Program
Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\1033. It should not have any attributes
set; that is, it should NOT be Hidden, System or Read-only. It should not
have any readable text in it; the DOS command "type id_011.dpc" should
produce nothing but apparent gibberish on your screen with, perhaps, a few
audible beeps. If you open it in Notepad, you should similarly see only
"garbage". This does not mean the file is corrupt; it just means that it is
in binary code, not a human language.

The file looks just like you describe. I moved the 1033 folder to a new
folder and reinstalled Office in its original location. The corrupt file is
now at c:\1033\ID_011.DPC. When I try to copy the good file over the corrupt
file, I get the error message that I cannot replace the file because it is
corrupt and unreadable.

You should not need a boot diskette or a Win98 disk. You haven't said, but
I assume you are using NTFS. WinXP is happy with either FAT or NTFS, but
neither MS-DOS nor Win9x/ME can read, write, boot from or even SEE an NTFS
volume. There are third-party programs that allow MS-DOS to work with NTFS,
but you should not need any of those. WinXP has a Command Prompt, which we
often refer to as the "DOS" window, but with "DOS" in quotes to remind us
that it is only an emulation, not true MS-DOS. When in this "DOS" window,
we can use DOS-like commands to work with both FAT and NTFS volumes. Maybe
that's why many users say that the WinXP Command Prompt is "a better DOS
than DOS". There are several ways to get to this "DOS" window; one is to
click Start | Run and enter: cmd.exe

The command prompt gives the same error that the file is corrupt and
unreadable.

Boot into WinXP and open a "DOS" window. You said you've isolated your
problem file in a folder by itself, but you haven't told us the name or
location of that folder, so I'll use C:\OldOffice\id_011.dpc as an example.
From any prompt in the "DOS" window, type:

I get "The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable"

Robin

 

[Guest]

The Hijacker didn't work either.

In

From Robear:

"Oops! Forgot the most important part: After selecting the file to be
deleted, leave HijackThis open while rebooting. (Sorry)"

LOL That's about all the additional ideas we've had crop up in there. Let us
know if it's worked or not so that should we face this again we'll be able
to solve it more rapidly.

Galen

--

"My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me
the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am
in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial
stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for
mental exaltation." -- Sherlock Holmes

 

[Galen]

In

I get "The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable"

Robin

Okay then... This is actually a bit of an odd situation it seems but no
worries, we'll hopefully figure out what we're doing here and get this
figured out. Have you checked your system for malware? I mean all of it?
Trojans, spyware, viruses, or just plan junkware? That might be an issue at
this point in time and is something that we should probably look at. Another
issue that has been asked, though no definative answers yet, is could this
be a hardware issue? Once again, just humor me, open up the "My Computer"
icon, right-click on the drive in question, select properties, click on
tools, and under error checking click check now and put a tick in BOTH of
the boxes. When you click OK it will give you a message about it not being
able to do the check at this time and ask you if you want to schedule it for
the next reboot. Tell it yes and then reboot.

When it runs through the scan watch it, if you will. Does it report any
errors? If yes (and if it doesn't say that it fixed them) post back here
with the results. If not then go ahead and follow basically the same path
but this time try to defrag the system. I'm just winging it here but we've
tried everything else and all you can do now is await the arrival of the
software and try it with that. (Hopefully that will do the trick for you by
the way.) After the defrag could you give it a shot and try to delete it
again? Err... If it's not too much of a bother could you try it in safe
mode? *chuckles*

I'm quite sorry about this but, well, I personally haven't ever seen this
happen before in my life. After a chkdsk the file's delete just fine here. I
was quite alarmed when they didn't do so on your computer. I'd like to see
this through because it's just unique enough to be interesting. Please, if
you do find another method of ridding yourself from this file (an
alternative is to just live with it but we don't like that alternative now
do we? ) then let us know the method you used.

Galen
--
"My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me
the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am
in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial
stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for
mental exaltation." -- Sherlock Holmes

 

[Guest]

OK. Here it goes...

As far as malware, I run Norton Antivirus constantly. I also run Ad Aware
S.E. and Spybot daily. I delete everything they find. I do a full system
scan with Ad Aware at least once a month and the smart scan daily.

I ran the chkdsk following your instructions. It found the following errors
while verifying file data (stage 4 of 5), but all were fixed:

Windows replaced a bad cluster file 674 of name
\SYSTEM~1\FS\_RESTO~1\RP3\SNAPSHOT\RESPOSI~1\FS\OBJECTS.DATA

<SAME ERROR> file 8159 \SYSTEM~1\FS\_RESTO~1\RP9\SNAPSHOT\_R017D~1

<SAME ERROR> file 20916 \SYSTEM~1\FS\_RESTO~1\RP6\SNAPSHOT\_R017D~1

I ran defrag through My Computer with no issues. I then went into safe mode
and tried to delete the file and received a cmd.exe error: The file or
directory c:\1033\ID_011.DPC is corrupt and unreadable. Please run the
chkdsk utility. I restarted. Chkdsk ran and found nothing.

Let me know if you can think of anything else. Thanks.

Robin

 

[Galen]

In

Let me know if you can think of anything else. Thanks.

Methinks you'll need to wait until your CD has come in the mail for this
one. I've no ideas beyond that at this point, well. I have one. Kick it.
Maybe two... Partition that section of the drive out with a hacksaw, wipe it
clean with an abrasive cleaner, and re-insert the bits and pieces. CHKDSK
will fix it after that *nods* Okay so those two aren't really very good
ideas but you get the idea? Basically I'm all out of ideas other then that
which you're going to get in the mail. Out of curiousity I ordered one this
weekend and it was shipped on Monday. They notified me via email that they'd
shipped it. I hope that you're able to get your copy soon. From that disk
you'll be able to build a handy diskette that boots like an OS from CD and
from there you SHOULD be able to delete the file. If not then you'll be able
to create yet another disk where you'll be able to boot using DOS with NTFS
(full read/write) support. Or so they people I know who've used it tell me
and the company's page tells me. I've yet to use it and it seemed to me that
you might have problems with it so I ordered a copy of it as well.

Galen
--

"My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me
the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am
in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial
stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for
mental exaltation." -- Sherlock Holmes

 

[Guest]

I have not received the disk or the email that it shipped. I think I'll
request it again. Thanks, and I'll update you when I get it.

Robin

 

[dave]

This is a very interesting problem. I'm not 100% savy on the way to
delete this file after reading the entire thread, but wouldn't it be
possible to get a LINUX distro on bootable CD to delete the file?
Probably not the preferred way but maybe an idea. Is this at all possible?

Dave

 

[Galen]

In

This is a very interesting problem. I'm not 100% savy on the way to
delete this file after reading the entire thread, but wouldn't it be
possible to get a LINUX distro on bootable CD to delete the file?
Probably not the preferred way but maybe an idea. Is this at all
possible?

LOL That or BartPE as a bootable CD is the next/last idea that we've come up
with so far in the thread in the mailing list. (Had to call in
re-enforcements.) Good thinking though.

An interesting aside here. I once used an early version of a CD based *NIX
(don't want to bad mouth it so I will leave the name out) and made an error
with it. I didn't read, this is MY fault, the help files clearly. I did read
them but didn't think about them is more accurate. Using the CD with XP
installed I'd gone ahead and told it to NOT ever save ANY files to disk
except to a separate slaved drive. However, I never assigned the root to the
slave drive. I then, this is MY fault, set up the modem. This, of course,
was saved to the drive which was C: at the time. Not the drive that I'd
wanted.

Somehow, in the end, the MBR was eaten. No amount of editing it, no fixing
it from recovery console, and no use of the tools from the drive
manufacturer ever repaired the MBR. Nothing, and I mean nothing as I think I
tried them all eventually, repaired it. My fault entirely. I have even tried
to edit the individual sectors with a HDD tool that I came across to no
avail. It turned out to make an wonderful slave though and to this day
there's a small section of the drive that not even Partition Magic can clean
up, edit, format to anything, or access. I have since decided to never use
*NIX from CD but that's just my own standing on this. I'd rather install it
to a slave if I'm going to use it and that's become very seldom these days.
However, you're 100% correct and if the CD does work as planned that would
almost certainly do the trick.

Galen

 

[Guest]

I have requested the disk twice in the last month, but I have never received
it. I also have never received an email telling me that it would ship. I'm
wondering if they won't send it to me because I answered the questionaire
honestly and told them it was for a home computer. Did you get your disk?

 

[Galen]

In racerl1 <[email protected]> had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

I have requested the disk twice in the last month, but I have never
received it. I also have never received an email telling me that it
would ship. I'm wondering if they won't send it to me because I
answered the questionaire honestly and told them it was for a home
computer. Did you get your disk?

"Galen" wrote:

Yes, tested and worked like a champ actually. Drop me an email at
(e-mail address removed) if you'd like and I'll read the EULA about distrobution
to see if I can send you mine in it's entirety as I haven't any need for it.
I think, if I recall, it clearly said that it could be distributed but only
if it remained intact with attached EULA and the like.

Galen