dheymann
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Window XP is writing to a file called Change.log and I can't delete the file
I have a second hard drive in my Windows XP desktop PC. This hard drive used to be a system drive in an old PC. I am trying to delete all the files so i can use it for storage but a couple of files are resisting deletion. i have gone through all of the threads I could find (this helped me delete a lot of stubborn files). But I still have this change.log. I can't delete it because windows is using. It is a 360kb file and windows is writing to it within the last few minutes. Is there some type of logging I have turned on that I could turn off? I know there are programs to force deletion but I don't know what would happen if i forced deletion of a file windows was using.
Houssam Ballout
Had you try to delete it from safe mode?
What make/model of drive is it? I would go to the manufacturers site and download the diagnostic disc for that particular make/model and then put it in as a master with no slave drive, boot up with the diag floppy and reformat it that way. Then put it back in as you had it before and Windows should be able to format it which ever way you choose in disk management.
Hope that helps!
Hope that helps!
Have you tried just re-formatting that drive?
ASKER
housaam: I tried booting into safe mode to delete change.log but it didn't work. Even in safe mode windows was using the file. To be more specific, windows renamed change.log to change.log.1 and created a new change.log. I could now delete the old file (since it was no longer in use) but now I have a new change.log that I still can't delete even in safe mode.
Choswoot: I have a huge amount of data stored on the drive so I would rather not format. i am fairly certain I tried to format it when it didn't have my data and I was not allowed to format it.
fizz: I don't have a floppy drive
Any other ideas? I need to get windows to release the file so I can delete it. I tried zap.com and wholockme but I couldn't figure out how to make them work
Choswoot: I have a huge amount of data stored on the drive so I would rather not format. i am fairly certain I tried to format it when it didn't have my data and I was not allowed to format it.
fizz: I don't have a floppy drive
Any other ideas? I need to get windows to release the file so I can delete it. I tried zap.com and wholockme but I couldn't figure out how to make them work
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ASKER
Perfect solution
ASKER
Thanks Houssam. worked like a charm
Welcome mate