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hideOriginal Post

Nov 02, 12 at 12:16pm

Hi guys. Please read this thread before asking "WTF ARE YOU TRYING TO DO"...

Basically, a very long time ago, my C drive started to fail (A long time ago as in, like 2008). When I saw that I rapidly copied all of the drive's data into a new hard drive. I didn't have the intention of saving my Windows setup or anything. I just wanted to save its data. But in the rush, I copied absolutely all the folders in C into another hard drive (literally: Ctrl + A, Ctrl + C, Ctrl + V). I bought yet another hard drive and started a new Windows setup.

Fast forward 4 years ahead to today. I'm currently cleaning my hard drives and organizing files. I found the Windows folder from 2008 that I backed up in my rush. But I can't delete it. It always tells me I need permission even though my Windows account does have admin rights. How can I delete a folder that apparently requires permissions I don't have? Sometimes I try to delete the folder, and it tells me I need "TrustedInstaller's" permission to delete it. But I don't think I have that.

Any help and I will love you.

Thread Recap (last 10 posts from newest to oldest)

Jan 05, 13 at 11:16pm
Devon123

You can try a couple of things yourself:
1) Simple rename the file to a single character name. Then try to delete.
2). Try renaming folders that are in the path if you can to one character names. Try to delete
3). Go this from the Net:
Another method is deleting the files the command prompt.
Start>Run>"Cmd" Enter.
cd to the folder one level up from the one that contains the files that won't delete, and use the rd command like
"rd/s/q folderwithbadfilenames" Enter
4) Look for a utility on the net. There are several, some for pay and some suspecious looking: P I can't give advice on a good one.
5) Write a program in c or something to delete the pathname..



Nov 17, 12 at 12:50pm
Saga

Just thought I should let you know, I ended up making some space in another drive and moved the actual data, so I could format the F:\ drive.

Problem solved, but god this is stupid.



Nov 03, 12 at 6:20am
lKasHl

Glad to hear that helped Saga, sometimes its the most obvious solution that is hardest to come up with

Generally you shouldn't have to worry about permissions being denied in a situation like this since it was just an OS transfer but thanks for the clarification Harbin, from my recollection having a deny permission takes precedence over allow so if one of them was denied it would have wrecked that solution.



Nov 03, 12 at 5:31am
harbin

Didn't mention formatting since I wasn't sure if Saga had alot of data that would need backing up. When formatting that I'd recommend ticking the quick format box.

The permissions solutions should've fixed the problem. One thing that ikachi left out of solution 2 was to remove users (typically System, all users, trusted installer, and the admins groups) that had a deny permission set as Deny completely overrides Allow. If System and sagas user account had deny set next to Everyone having allow full control, she'd still need to do a big amount of messing aroung.



Nov 02, 12 at 11:34pm
Saga

Harbin91 I read somewhere a while ago that *Nix ignores permissions in NTFS drives. I could be wrong though.
... But with Ikashi's first solution (which I... am facepalming hard for not thinking on that on my own) looks like I may not need to do that. The hard drive with these folders are in a drive with little data. I can move it to another drive in the meantime, format it, and stop hitting my head because of it.

Thanks for mentioning formatting Ikashi. I'm now on my bed typing from my iPad (so excuse the typos if any), but I will absolutely do this tomorrow.



Nov 02, 12 at 10:35pm
lKasHl

This is one of the most annoying and irritating features of windows, I can't see how protecting redundant system files from a past OS is useful to preserving the current OS.

There are 2 relatively easy ways you can take care of this:
1) Just copy out the files you need and format the drive, given this might not be time efficient if you have alot of data on the drive you want to retain you can try the second option, which also unfortunately can be time consuming, but its alot more automated.

2) Find the folder in which the system files are in, typically you would want to get to the root folder so that you don't have to bother changing multiple file properties manually. Next go to properties and select the security tab. From there you want to click "edit" and then "add." In the context field that pops type "everyone" (minus the quotations). Click okay. Now with everyone selected in the group of users field (should be by default anyway) check the "full control" check box under "allow". Click okay on all the dialogues and you should now have permission to delete anything within the folder for which you changed the permissions.

I'm assuming number 2 should work straight away considering you're using windows 7, if it doesn't though get back to me and we'll work on inheriting the folder permissions to sub folders. Best of luck!



Nov 02, 12 at 9:10pm
harbin

quote Dynamite
My CLI commands attempted to take ownership of the folder and all of its contents, then assign full permissions to the SYSTEM user who would in theory then have permissions to delete them. If they didn't work it's difficult to imagine any other method, such as GUI, working.

If the volume was mounted in Linux with necessary permissions the root user could do whatever operation they wanted on them. A simple rm /mnt/drive/Windows -rf would take care of it.

I'm not really a Windows user and it's for reasons like this.
TBH I did try creating a folder with two files and putting permissions for 'Everyone' and 'System' set to deny full control, to recurse into child directories, leaving the only way to get a permission back through taking ownership. The method you put for the CLI worked in that case.

I did have a similar problem a few years ago when I copied a ton of files and was inundated with permission issues.



Nov 02, 12 at 9:03pm
Dynamite

My CLI commands attempted to take ownership of the folder and all of its contents, then assign full permissions to the SYSTEM user who would in theory then have permissions to delete them. If they didn't work it's difficult to imagine any other method, such as GUI, working.

If the volume was mounted in Linux with necessary permissions the root user could do whatever operation they wanted on them. A simple rm /mnt/drive/Windows -rf would take care of it.

I'm not really a Windows user and it's for reasons like this.



Nov 02, 12 at 8:47pm
harbin

TBH I'm not sure how Ubuntu would work with the delete, since the file permissions exist in the file system... sepecially since I'm not that well versed in Linux.

Chances are that somewhere in the entire folder structure, one file hasn't had the permissions inherited, and Windows interrupts the file process, since you can access the folder structure and delete folders individually. When you tried setting the permissions in the GUI, what did you put?



Nov 02, 12 at 7:59pm
Saga

Windows 7 Ultimate (64 Bit).

I tried the taking ownership method and permissions modification thing. I did it via the GUI first (Properties > Security > Advanced to change ownership, and modifying permissions in the same Security tab as earlier). It works - to certain extent. The changes don't spread through files (even though I clicked to apply the ownership to all contained files and folders). I have found that I can delete files if I go into the folder, and do it manually to every folder. But there's literally over a thousand folders here so that's outrageous.

I also think Dynamite's pre-step 4 commands are to change ownership and permissions. So we can say I tried that twice (via GUI and command line) with no luck).



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