I have a directory on my Windows 2000 Server NTFS drive which was originally part of a Photoshop 6 installation. One day last week the machine went down hard, worst its ever been (which is really bad!) ImageReady was open at the time. First time that I've ever had chkdsk turn up any problems to fix. When it finally was runable, photoshop was toast, couldn't reinstall. Looking into it I found an ImageReady directory in the Plug-Ins dir. Try to look at the contents and the message appears, "D:\[DIRNAME] is not accessible. The directory name is invalid." I can rename the directory, I can cut and paste it anywhere on the the drive, but not move it to another drive and it cannot be deleted by any means known to me, including rmdir /s from a dos prompt. Chkdsk has no problem with it. I have been able to move it out of the way of re-installing photoshop, but otherwise its a phantom 0 size directory that will not go away. Any Suggestions? No chance its FTP-Hack related. My limited FTP service is locked down and has been since I enabled it, plus its behind a firewall, plus this drive is not accessible to the ftp service anyways. It is definately related to the HARD crash this machine went through.

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Have you tried creating a new folder and moving it to the new folder then delete the new folder?

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I had in effect tried this, but did so specifically when I got your post. Still won't delete. Get Error Message: TITLE: "Error Deleting File or Folder" MSG: "Cannot Remove Folder STUPID: The directory name is invalid." ** In my frustration, and testing, I've gotten the folder renamed to "STUPID", cause that's what it is. :) My best guess is that there are illegal characters in the folders name at the end that do not show up, which would explain why I can move it around on the same drive, 'cause its just updating the root path of the folder and not attempting to change or delete the folder itself.


On Saturday, February 8, 2003 at 7:45 am, Twanda wrote:
>Have you tried creating a new folder and moving it to the new folder then delete
>the new folder?

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Is it small enough to move to a floppy? If you have any other OS installed boot into that and delete it or if you have an empty partition you can move it to and then reformat that partition. When all else fails me I use DemoLinux which runs from the CD and manipulate anything I want in Windows. Windows of all OSs does some of the strangest things.

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I didn't want to move it, I wanted it gone, but it was not deleteable by conventional means. However, I have solved the problem of the NTFS undeletable folder. Apparently i was right about corruption after the folder name on the disk, ahy chkdsk didn't catch it, I don't know, but anyway what I did was: a) Download a disk editing tool for NTFS drives, I got lucky on the first application I downloaded: Runtime's DiskExplorer for NTFS Demo version, I didn't need a recovery tool, already have one. The demo version doesn't do recovery, but it allows direct editing of clusters on the disk, which is all I thought I needed. b) I strapped on an extra set, 'cause mine were not big enough on their own to get me to attempt editing clusters on this very important machine's hard drive. c) Browsed the disk, found the cluster containing the offending folder and the software allowed me to fill the space containing the garbage with zeros. d) Looked in Windows explorer...same condition, the folder didn't go away and was still undeletable, same message. YEAH! e) ran chkdsk again hopeful that the change would kick it. As I was hoping, the folder that remained after I edited the disk was only part of the link to the file that was causing the problem, which was now just zeros, and chkdsk deleted the remining part(s) of the thing and its now gone gone. I am victorious! Hope this helps someone else.


On Saturday, February 8, 2003 at 8:05 am, Bill Jones wrote:
>I had in effect tried this, but did so specifically when I got your post. Still
>won't delete. Get Error Message:
>TITLE: "Error Deleting File or Folder"
>MSG: "Cannot Remove Folder STUPID: The directory name is invalid."
>
>** In my frustration, and testing, I've gotten the folder renamed to "STUPID", cause
>that's what it is. :)
>
>My best guess is that there are illegal characters in the folders name at the end
>that do not show up, which would explain why I can move it around on the same drive,
>'cause its just updating the root path of the folder and not attempting to change
>or delete the folder itself.
>

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