"delete file" takes forever to finish

[Bob]

XP-Home, SP2

When I delete a file from my local hard drive it takes "forever" to
finish deleting. We're talking on the or of 30 seconds or more for a
simple single file delete sometimes. I can actually click the "cancel"
button in the delete dialog as it is sitting there humming along and
the file will be properly deleted... but completion of the delete is
quite a ways away if I let it run.

When this hang occurs, I can see the hard drive light spinning away.
There's plenty of space (24gb) free on the drive so it's not a space
issue and the machine is not particularly old and slow (1.4ghz laptop,
year old).

Ideas ?

 

[ANONYMOUS]

Have you tried deleting the files in safe mode to see if there is any
difference? It could be that the HD is defragmented and windows is
taking time to searach all the bits of that file on your HD.

 

[R. McCarty]

From a Command Prompt Window, do a Chkdsk C: and see if the
drive has inconsistencies & recommends a /F /R re-run of Chkdsk.

 

[Sven Pran]

XP-Home, SP2

When I delete a file from my local hard drive it takes "forever" to
finish deleting. We're talking on the or of 30 seconds or more for a
simple single file delete sometimes. I can actually click the "cancel"
button in the delete dialog as it is sitting there humming along and
the file will be properly deleted... but completion of the delete is
quite a ways away if I let it run.

When this hang occurs, I can see the hard drive light spinning away.
There's plenty of space (24gb) free on the drive so it's not a space
issue and the machine is not particularly old and slow (1.4ghz laptop,
year old).

Ideas ?

I do not know it this is still relevant, but when I selected files for
deletion in Windows Explorer the first files went straight away.

However, after a while the delays became longer and longer, it
seemed as if explorer had problems updating the file tree displayed.

I can't say that I have noticed this problem with the current WE.

regards Sven

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

Several

I do not know it this is still relevant, but when I selected files for
deletion in Windows Explorer the first files went straight away.

However, after a while the delays became longer and longer, it
seemed as if explorer had problems updating the file tree displayed.

That changes the weeighting of my ideas ;-)

I can't say that I have noticed this problem with the current WE.

This isn't just fragmentation - it's more likely something that's
integrated into the shell and thus invoked whenever the folder views
have to be refreshed. It may also be related to the Recycle Bin, if
that is corrupted in some way - test that by holding down Shift
through the delete process, so the Bin is bypassed.

Possible causes...

1) Namespace items (left panel)

Anything on the desktop that is not a shortcut and not a file or
directory, is a CLSID namespace object - e.g. Outlook and IE icons,
and some 3rd-party add-ons too.

Other items that can be slow to refresh are drive letters mapped to
network shares, web folders perhaps, anything that's a peripheral
extension of the system, bad CDs in the optical drive, etc.

A normal hard drive can become slow if it is failing, because of
repeated attempts to read or relocate failing sectors.

2) Folder contents (right panel)

Display of the contents of a folder requires the reading of directory
information (usually fast) and sometimes reading from actual file
data, e.g. to get icons from .EXE etc. (slow and risky). In addition,
other code may be invoked as "handlers" for various types of files.

Finally, both malware and av may scan files as they are listed, and
that can cause slowdown too.

Test folders with few items vs. many, as well as different types of
files. If you find that the presence of a type of file in the view is
what makes things slow, then suspect a bad handler. The best tool to
test for that is Nirsoft's free Shell Integration Viewer.

3) Indexers and thumbnailers

These run underfoot irrespective of what the shell is doing, but may
be invoked when the contents of a folder are changed. For example,
deleting a file may require the corresponding thumbnail or index entry
to be deleted as well.

Less obvious facilities that fall into this category are some av that
maintain integrety data for monitored files, and System Restore, which
also monitors files as they are changed or deleted.

HTH?

------------ ----- --- -- - - - -

Drugs are usually safe. Inject? (Y/n)

 

[Bob]

Several

Makes sense... thanks, I will check out your suggestions.