Tip: Run a free scan for common Windows errors ad

re: Unable to Delete Folder Sunday, January 18, 2004 at 6:48 pm Posted by Barry(uk) (1289 messages posted) Have you tried renaming the folder ?..... On Sunday, January 18, 2004 at 6:33 pm, midopa wrote: >Hi, > >I'm running Windows XP and have somehow managed to create a folder that ends with >a space. That is, "FolderName ", instead of "FolderName." I'm guessing this is confusing >Windows because I can't delete the folder. > >This has happened before to me when I was downloading files with FlashGet and accidentally >told FlashGet to save the files to a directory with a period at the end of the path, >"FolderName.". > >As illogical as it may sound, this does happen. Try it. You'll be stuck with an annoying >folder that just doesn't go away. > >Anyway, I've read a few posts regarding the same thing and the general solution seems >to be to check it for adware or remove the "read only" attribute to the folder. The >former doesn't solve anything and the later doesn't work because Windows doesn't >even recognize the folder (when I click on properties, all I get is the properties >box with no data whatsoever and "read only" unchecked). > >Perhaps someone can help me out? The last time this happened (the FlashGet incident) >I couldn't stand seeing the useless folder all the time so I reformat my harddrive. >However, reformating is the last option I have in mind. > >Thanks, >midopa [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Unable to Delete Folder Sunday, January 18, 2004 at 6:51 pm Posted by midopa (10 messages posted) Yeah. I get that infamous error message that everyone with the same problem gets: "Cannot [delete] file: Cannot read from the source file or disk." [delete] can be replaced by 'rename' or 'move', none of which seem to work. On Sunday, January 18, 2004 at 6:48 pm, Barry(uk) wrote: >Have you tried renaming the folder ?..... > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Unable to Delete Folder Sunday, January 18, 2004 at 7:44 pm Posted by phantom (5661 messages posted) You might try Safe Mode or delete it from Command Prompt. On Sunday, January 18, 2004 at 6:51 pm, midopa wrote: >Yeah. I get that infamous error message that everyone with the same problem gets: > >"Cannot [delete] file: Cannot read from the source file or disk." > >[delete] can be replaced by 'rename' or 'move', none of which seem to work. > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Unable to Delete Folder Sunday, January 18, 2004 at 8:17 pm Posted by czyxzy (594 messages posted) Go to RUN... Type CMD... navigate to the directory where the folder resides, Type Del FOLDERNAME? The questionmark is for the space at the end of the name. It's a wild card for any character. You might have to do this in Safe Mode, but I don't think so. On Sunday, January 18, 2004 at 6:33 pm, midopa wrote: >Hi, > >I'm running Windows XP and have somehow managed to create a folder that ends with >a space. That is, "FolderName ", instead of "FolderName." I'm guessing this is confusing >Windows because I can't delete the folder. > >This has happened before to me when I was downloading files with FlashGet and accidentally >told FlashGet to save the files to a directory with a period at the end of the path, >"FolderName.". > >As illogical as it may sound, this does happen. Try it. You'll be stuck with an annoying >folder that just doesn't go away. > >Anyway, I've read a few posts regarding the same thing and the general solution seems >to be to check it for adware or remove the "read only" attribute to the folder. The >former doesn't solve anything and the later doesn't work because Windows doesn't >even recognize the folder (when I click on properties, all I get is the properties >box with no data whatsoever and "read only" unchecked). > >Perhaps someone can help me out? The last time this happened (the FlashGet incident) >I couldn't stand seeing the useless folder all the time so I reformat my harddrive. >However, reformating is the last option I have in mind. > >Thanks, >midopa [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Unable to Delete Folder Sunday, January 18, 2004 at 8:43 pm Posted by midopa (10 messages posted) Hm... Thanks for the info! I'll try it when I reboot the computer. Just to be sure, to get to the Windows XP bootup menu I press F8 during the black screen before the Windows loading screen, correct? Thanks again for your info, midopa On Sunday, January 18, 2004 at 8:17 pm, CZYXZY wrote: >Go to RUN... Type CMD... navigate to the directory where the folder resides, Type >Del FOLDERNAME? The questionmark is for the space at the end of the name. It's a >wild card for any character. You might have to do this in Safe Mode, but I don't >think so. > > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Unable to Delete Folder Sunday, January 18, 2004 at 10:27 pm Posted by midopa (10 messages posted) Turns out this doesn't work. I tried in normal Windows and in Safe Mode. I also tried various combos of the wildcard and the path. I've also used the asterisk but to no avail. Thanks for your help, though. Anyone else know of possible solutions? Thanks, midopa On Sunday, January 18, 2004 at 8:43 pm, midopa wrote: >Hm... Thanks for the info! I'll try it when I reboot the computer. > >Just to be sure, to get to the Windows XP bootup menu I press F8 during the black >screen before the Windows loading screen, correct? > >Thanks again for your info, >midopa > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Unable to Delete Folder Sunday, January 18, 2004 at 11:41 pm Posted by czyxzy (594 messages posted) One more trick from the old DOS days... try putting the file name in quotes, including the ending space, "FILENAME " On Sunday, January 18, 2004 at 8:43 pm, midopa wrote: >Hm... Thanks for the info! I'll try it when I reboot the computer. > >Just to be sure, to get to the Windows XP bootup menu I press F8 during the black >screen before the Windows loading screen, correct? > >Thanks again for your info, >midopa > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Unable to Delete Folder Tuesday, January 20, 2004 at 3:38 pm Posted by midopa (10 messages posted) That didn't work either. I've tried a number of combinations of quotations, asterisks, and question marks. Haha... Windows is a big pain in the ass with this... haha.. On Sunday, January 18, 2004 at 11:41 pm, CZYXZY wrote: >One more trick from the old DOS days... try putting the file name in quotes, including >the ending space, "FILENAME " > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Unable to Delete Folder Thursday, January 20, 2005 at 8:07 am Posted by Dale (1 messages posted) Is the folder you can't delete in a separate folder of its own? If so, you can do rmdir separatefolder /S from the command prompt to remove a) the separate folder and more importantly b) your annoying folder! Was struggling to delete one of my own until this afternoon. On Tuesday, January 20, 2004 at 3:38 pm, midopa wrote: >That didn't work either. I've tried a number of combinations of quotations, asterisks, >and question marks. > >Haha... Windows is a big pain in the ass with this... haha.. > [Reply or follow-up to this message] Tip: Use one of the [Reply or follow-up to this message] links above to add a message to this thread Search this forum Start a new thread on a different subject Report abuse of the forum Return to the Windows XP Discussion Forum