[TJ-]

Ive got these 2 rars on my external drive which i want to remove, but as you can see it wont let me. I would let to get rid of them, but cant. Tried rebooting, tried plugging it into several different computers and still wont let me.

So how do i delete these?

[PangingJr]

backup your files on that drive and run error-checking on it (or in CMD window run chkdsk <drive>: /f), and then try deleting the files again.

[Zardon]

Sometimes this happens if a low level error has occured. in this instance, I would immediately back up everything on that Drive to another hard drive or optical media/DVD/CD. go into start/run/diskmgmt.msc then perform a long format of the drive to a standard NTFS structure. once it has formatted and masked out any bad sectors copy all the files back over again.

You may need to monitor the drive and get some testing software as errors like this can be a leadup to a cascade drive failure so make sure nothing important or irreplaceable is on it.

[TJ-]

ahh shit.... umm i have 200gig worth of data on it, music, movies etc.

These files were not complete when i put them on the hard disk. They are part torrent files, and i was in the process of moving them from one computer to another, but couldnt get them off the hard drive. So would this still mean bad sectors, cause its impossible for me to back up all of this stuff there is just too much of it.

I can open the files fine, it just says that the file had unpected end of archive.

Will run error check when i get home.

[PangingJr]

it could be just some errors in the file system. chkdsk with the /f switch fixes file system errors, not disk bad sectors.
chkdsk may fix the errors, however, in the process may cause data loss to occur,
so you'll want to backup your files first. in general, if you don't have enough hard drive space to make a backup, then just save only the most important files.
but if you happen to have hard drive space, then it's best to backup everything, then re-format the problem drive/partition and move the files back in...
i know this sounds easier said than done, but when the problem like this occurs that's one of solutions.
you may also want to try moving/deleting those problem files on reboot with a third-party program. but i'd suggest you make a backup of your most important files first anyway.

[PangingJr]

type these two command-lines in CMD window, hit Enter after each...

chkntfs X:

and then, fsutil dirty query X:

where x is the drive letter of the partition...

you should recieve the following...

for the chkntfs command... The type of the file system is NTFS. X: is not dirty.
and for the fsutil dirty query...Volume - x: is NOT Dirty.

if the mesage you recieve after entering the commands is... the drive/partition... is not dirty,
so ok, since you don't have a large enough free/spare hard drive space to make a full backup,
you will have to make the decision here... which files are the most important to you, then backup those files...
and process with the deleting of the problem files upon the next system reboots...

IF you can make a full backup of the partition, as said earlier it's best to do that and re-format the partition...
if you use the partition to store many files with many directories you should consider giving more reserve MFT zone of the NTFS file system,

to do this, before you begin to re-format... run this command under the CMD window,

fsutil behavior set mftzone 2

the command modifiles the related registry to double the size of the reserved space for the MFT from the default 12.5 to 25 percent of all the NTFS partitions that will be created after this change.

you can also manually modify your registry by going to...

HKLM\SystemCurrentControlSetControlFileSystem....

then add a REG_DWORD value, name it "NtfsMftZoneReservation", and then give its data value to 2.

note-- either you make this change via the command-line or manually enter the registry value/data the Windows system needs to be rebooted after you have made the change and before you start reformatting the NTFS partitions. this might not directly help prevent this problem to occur, but it can help your NTFS file system, it'll work better in the case that its contains a lot of file directories.

[TJ-]

Originally Posted by PangingJr

type these two command-lines in CMD window, hit Enter after each...

chkntfs X:

and then, fsutil dirty query X:

where x is the drive letter of the partition...

My drive is dirty on both checks

Ran error checking through the right click Tools options to see what would happen and it stalled at phase 4

Backing up this data is not really an option......

Is this really a big deal, should i just leave these files as they are and not touch anything, because i believe the ntfs system is still fine, its just these part torrent files.

The total size of the partition is 76gig, and i only got 35 gig free space and i kinda need all these files.

[PangingJr]

"Is this really a big deal?"

well i'd say yes.

again, buy another hard drive (i remember i told you this once before a few months back.)
and backup your files. you need another copy of your needed files.
that is why it's called backup, you have not had it yet, you know what i mean?

personnally, i know too much about these things lol, so i don't have problem using these drives at all for the past many years.
i guess you need to be careful during connecting/disconnecting/transfering files and using the USB drive...

try reformating the drive with more reserve MFT zone as i've mentioned before, then copy your files back on to the formatted partition.

also, as for a good practice when you transfer files from a drive to the external drives always copy the files over, not move them,
then after all the files have been copied you can delete the original files.

and don't use any disk utility tools, norton disk or whatever... don't tweak your Windows to shutdown too fast, in fact don't use any tools to tweak your Windows registry at all.

[TJ-]

thanks man ill do this over the weekend. Only problem is i am on a laptop and only have 1 external case with 2 sata harddrives. And not enough room on my laptop to 'store' the data temporilary. Ill see what i can do to fix this and report back.

[PangingJr]

i understand that it's not easy to do that, you'll have to connect the USB drives to transfer all the files back and forth many times before you can get it done, but once you have another copy of all the needed files you'll be happy that you have them.
under the worst case, you just lost your time to redo all the things, but all the lost files would be only the ones that have not been updated...

but IF you have access to a desktop computer, then you can do the file transfers faster. this also includes the works that you'll have to do with disk reformatting (on the existing drive) and disk partitioning/formatting (on the new drive). just connect these drives to the desktop computer and do the works first, then mount them to the external USB enclosure after.

[GNetX]

I'm not sure if this will work but it might be worth looking into: I've used a piece of software that removes the file during Windows startup called GiPo@Moveonboot. I'm not gonna guarantee that it will help you with this situation nor can I recommend the software specifically, but it might be a slightly less drastic alternative to the options suggested here. Google the above software name for more info.

Hope this helps, good luck with it.

GNetX.

[PangingJr]

actually, there were some options suggested,
however, none of them can be guaranteed and he still needs to perform a backup.

[PangingJr]

he couldn't delete those files not because they're being used or locked,
but there was actually some problem with the file system...

You cannot delete a file or a folder on an NTFS file system volume
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=kb;en-us;Q320081

Cause 3: File system corruption is preventing access to the file
You may not be able to delete the file if the file system is corrupted. To resolve this issue, run the Chkdsk utility on the disk volume to correct any errors.

Bad sectors on the disk, other faulty hardware, or software bugs can corrupt the file system and put files in a problematic state. Typical operations may fail in a variety of ways. When the file system detects corruption, it logs an event to the event log and you typically receive a message that prompts you to run Chkdsk. Depending on the nature of the corruption, Chkdsk may or may not be able to recover file data; however, Chkdsk returns the file system to an internally consistent state. For additional information about using the Chkdsk utility, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Error Message: The File or Directory Is Corrupt...
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/176646/

CAUSE
This behavior can occur if the file, folder or file system index (Master File Table [MFT] or File Allocation Table [FAT]) is damaged.

RESOLUTION
WARNING: When Chkdsk detects problems with the file system and attempts to repair the damage, data loss can occur. Microsoft does not recommend running Chkdsk with the /f command-line switch unless you have a full backup of your hard disk.

anyway, if the problem file was from an uncompleted download file of a download manager, you can try to remove the file entry within the download manager first, and then delete the problem file later. this may help in some cases.

[GNetX]

Duly noted PangingJr, I just thought I'd offer my thoughts. I'll read the thread properly next time!

- GNetX

[PangingJr]

no worry, you can always make a suggestion too, i thought you might want to know why i've made those suggestions.

[TJ-]

ok after doing all the above suggested i finally have no drives that are dirty. thank god.

its there another advanced way to perhaps check again, or even prevent this from happening in the future..

thanks for all the help.

[PangingJr]

please do not worry about that just now, and reread what i've already mentioned in the earlier posts.
later i'll try to add some more info on this if i can think of something...