Deleting My Old Disk Structure

[Guest]

Having been forced to reinstall XP, I was grateful to find all my old foders
and files preserved in My Old Disk Structure. I have now got everything I
need from this folder and wish to delete it, or at least major parts of it.
However XP appears to be unwilling to allow deletion of the Windows folder
and others, such as SP2. I presume that it is safe to remove these
components now that the reisntalled operating system has been up and running
successfully for some but the question is 'How do I do it?'

 

[Danny Sanders]

Having been forced to reinstall XP, I was grateful to find all my old

foders
and files preserved in My Old Disk Structure. I have now got everything I
need from this folder and wish to delete it, or at least major parts of
it.
However XP appears to be unwilling to allow deletion of the Windows folder
and others, such as SP2.

You can't delete the Windows folder because you re installed XP into it.

You are asking Windows to delete the folder that holds everything Windows
needs to run.

hth

DDS W 2k MVP MCSE

 

[Guest]

I evidently made my question too simplistic. I am, of course, fully aware
that the operationg system is located in the Windows folder and that this
cannot be removed. Indeed, I cannot imagine why anyone would wish, or even
attempt, to do this. However, when XP is reinstalled a new Windows folder is
created, typically as C:\Windows. The old Windows folder meanwhile is copied
to C:\My Old Disk Structure - Date\Windows. The latter is clearly redundant
because the reinstalled operating system runs in the new Windows folder. It
is the old version of the Windows folder that I wish to remove. I do hope
that this clarifies the situation.

 

[Danny Sanders]

Try deleting it in safe mode

Or

boot to DOS and delete it in DOS. Just make sure you are deleting the "old"
install.


hth
DDS W 2k MVP MCSE

 

[Guest]

I feared that that might be the answer. I have already tried Safe Mode
deletion, but to no avail. XP appears to be no more willing to allow deletion
of system folders in My Old Disk Structure in Safe Mode than it is in normal
mode, although it will allow non-system file deletion in either mode. It
would appear that the original level of protection is transferred with the
files and folders when they are copied from the main system to My Old Disk
Structure.

I was hoping to avoid DOS deletion because, as you hint, it is potentially
hazardous, particularly because of the 8 character limit on file name. DOS
will not recognize 'My Old Disk Structure - Date' so it is going to need a
lot of care if a Del *.* situation, or something close to it, is to be
avoided. Having spent weeks getting everything back to where it was before
the crash I am less than happy to contemplate the possibility of screwing the
whole thing up again.

Having provided a most useful facility, to save all the previous files in
'My Old Disk Structure - Date'. it seems strange that MS has not seen fit to
provide an equally effective facility to remove the folder when it is no
longer needed. It can, after all, take up a lot of disk space and there
appears little point in dragging this around and continually backing it up
when it has become redundant.

If you have any more useful thoughts I would, of course, like to hear of
them but, in the mean time, I do hope that MS will take note of what appears
to be an important shortcoming.

Thanks for your help.

Peter Hallett

 

[Guest]

The removal of files and folders under DoS is no more successful that under
Windows XP in normal or safe mode. If DoS is run from a system diskette, it
seems to be unable to find the C:\ drive or, indeed, any drive save A:\. If
it is run from the command prompt within XP then access is denied to
C:\My Old Disk Structure…\147b2c4811……\sp2
C:\My Old Disk Structure…\f8f573e11……\sp2
and four Windows folders of the form
C:\My Old Disk Structure…\Windows\$NtUninstallB8…$

With XP reinstalled and running well, the above folders and their contents
represent redundant junk which occupies a significant amount of disk space
and which is unnecessarily archived every time a back-up is run.

Surely there must be some way of removing it?