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Marcos908

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Error Message "Cannot delete file: Cannot read from the source file or disk"

When i try to delete a folder it gives me the following error message, "Cannot delete file: Cannot read from the source file or disk" why is this? and who can i delete it ?
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sunray_2003
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Marcos908

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This hasn't been much helpful is there a more easy way to delete the folder? like thru the registry maybe?
What version of XP are you running? XP PRofessional or XP Home?
Also are you trying do delete a folder in the Documents and Settings folder that isn't under your username?
Marcos908 did you even try what I posted most of the time it works. Also boot to safe mode and try deleting it there.
Also are you logged in as the administrator
I'm am using XP Professional and i am not trying to delete a folder in the Documents and Settings folder, the folder which i am trying to delete is c:\Program Files\Mcafee VirusScan Professional Edition 7.00 there is nothing in the folder (0 bytes) has no creation date no nothing! And CrazyOne i have tried what you have posted but it has not worked i am also logged in as the administrator.
Oops sorry Sunray already posted that link. Did you try what is in that link
Yes i have tried what is in the link you have provided me but i still cannot resolve my problem.
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have u tried to delete this folder in SAFE MODE......or by using COMMAND PROMPT??
Yes i have tried deleting the folder in SAFE MODE and also by using COMMAND PROMPT.
Did you just recently uninstall McAffee AV? Maybe it didn't get completely uninstalled.

Do a CTL ALT DEL and click on the Task Manager Button
See if there is any remenant programs for McAffee running. I can't remember thier names, but I think they have AV in them. If so end the tasks and then try deleting the folder.

Try this:
START | SETTINGS | CONTROL PANEL
See if McAffee is in the Add/Remove Programs list if it is try to uninstall it.

Run RegCleaner. It is a freeware program an you can download it at this site.
http://www.setiathomescreensaverspeed.co.uk/index.html
i need help guys!!!
none of the above has done something
Ok this try this

First do this
Access To All Drives And Folders policy
Control Panel >  Administrative > Local Security Policy.
Security Settings > Local Policies > Security Options. Locate the "Recovery Console: Allow Floppy Copy And Access To All Drives And Folders" policy. Double-click this policy, and then set it to "Enable".

or edit the registry
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Setup\RecoveryConsole
SetCommand (DWORD) 1 = allow floppy copy etc, 0 = restrict some file
copying

Then when you get into the Recovery Console you need to use the SET command to get a few things to work,

SET AllowAllPaths = TRUE

Then run this command

RD "c:\Program Files\Mcafee VirusScan Professional Edition 7.00"


Description of the Windows XP Recovery Console
http://support.microsoft.com/search/preview.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314058

To start the Windows Recovery Console, use any of the following methods:
Start your computer by using the Windows Setup floppy disks or the Windows CD-ROM. At the "Welcome to Setup" screen, press F10 or press R to repair, and start the Windows Recovery Console.
=================
When i type RD c:\Program Files\Mcafee VirusScan Professional Edition 7.00 in cmd.exe after doing what you told me to do in the Recovery Console it gives me the following:
The system cannot find the file specified.
The system cannot find the path specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.
Did you put this

c:\Program Files\Mcafee VirusScan Professional Edition 7.00

in quotes like I showed you. :)

"c:\Program Files\Mcafee VirusScan Professional Edition 7.00"
so buddy.....is ur problem solved.....or still creating trouble for u :)

well im not sure but u can try one of the following steps:

1) Strat ur computer in safe mode and then scan ur hard drive for the errors with the option "Scan and attempt for bad sectors" as checked; remember do it the safe mode otherwise it will take hours to complete as there are many applications running in background in the normal mode.....so do it in the safe mode.

2) Defragment ur hard drive....do it also in the safe mode.

3) Also try to remove all the registry entries of McAfee Virus scan from both Current User and H_Key_Local_Machine folders. the registry entry should be a folder named Mcafee and if u had installed Mcafee firewall too....then there will be another folder named Mcafee.com.....delete both these folder from the regedit.

the reason for ur problem is probably coz of some misplacing of the hard drive sectors.....means windows has already removed this folder from the memory of the system.....but due to some problem or some wrong operation it has remained on any of the cluster of the hard drive......so u can see the folder on ur hard drive but when u ask window to delete it......it says that it has alreday deleted it......!!

i myself got this problem many times when i had a win98 system......i don't know abt ur operating system but i always used this method to get rid of these unwanted folders.......i just went into the safe mode and deleted it......and if still it couldn't remove i scanned my hard drive and then it removed all the curropted folders; and then a Defragmentation will set the order of all folders :)

Hope it will help u :)
CrazyOne, when i put in quotes c:\Program Files\McAfee VirusScan Professional Edition 7.00 in cmd.exe i get the following message:
"c:\Program Files\Mcafee VirusScan Professional Edition 7.00" is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
HELP PLEASE!!
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OH MY GOD!!! THANK YOU VERY MUCH CrazyOne and germarti it has resolved my problem!! :) thank you so very much!
You are kidding right?

If not...there are Accept buttons that you can press for the correct answers to your problem.

Let's close this thread and move on.
Thank you.
Alright this seems to be a common error with XP, I had this problem too. Actually all other solutions from different websites are always the same, like "try it with drag & drob in trashbin". Of cause this crap didn't work. This site was the first who had a answer which is
REALLY WORKING

thanks,you're great
The answer was from CrazyOne!!!!! Marcos908 why did u wait so long to try what had been posted right at the top....be fair.
crazy on your process works on windoze xp too
yeah this works fine but not if the files are like this 15454515.

any sugestions ???
Great answer CrazyOne.  You were right on the money from the start.  I tried it exactly as you said and it worked.  Pretty sure it was a hacker also.  Good job.
Just had this problem and tried everything suggested on this page. However, nothing worked.. there were some directories called lpt1, lpt2, lpt3 etc.. then within these there were some others, then com1, com2 etc..  I tried everything, then found a link to the following page on another site..

I must say, it worked a treat. And it's free (for the trimmed down version)

http://www.jrtwine.com/

Look under Delete FXP Files

hope this helps anyone else stumbling upon this page.

Smg.
I had Ftp open on my Server, and someone hacked it to do peer 2 peer file sharing.  they created folders in the inetpub folders with several folders within them.  they also denied me delete permission to them. when i tried to overwrite there permissions it says it can't find the files anywhere.  I was wondering if anyone knows how to delete these.  I tried safe mode. Doesn't work.  It's an exchange server with raid, so i can't take the disks out.  any help would be appreciated. thanks, Mike.
I had the same problem, mwsw1997.
First, if there are any deletable files inside the folders, delete them.  Then open a cmd prompt and go to your wwwroot folder.
Do a DIR /X /A to get the short folder names of the problem folders. (probably something like 0200~1).
Now type: RD /S 0200~1 (or whatever the folder name is).
Type Y for yes.
If it gives you an error saying that some of the subfolders are protected, REPEAT the same command until you get no errors.  It usually took 3 or 4 repeats to get rid of each folder.
Do this for each problem folder.

Lastly, make sure anonymous access is turned off on your FTP site. ;)

recommend you use Delete FXP Files™ from JRTwine Software.
http://www.jrtwine.com/Products/DelFXPFiles/index.htm

it will delete any file/directory that you need it to... it rocks.
I have a similar problem with a file deletion and get the same message "Cannot delelte file: cannot read from source file or disk"

This file was located in a script folder from the software Maya 6.0 (3d stuff).

Basically i deleted every folder on top of the remaining file until i had only one folder with the file left in it !

the file has no extension and is named: ü₧@╚
And i get the same message on move, delete and rename also !

I already tried all of the above even the file deletion software and still can't remove the file ...

I had a smilar problem under windows server 2003.
The "Dir /x /a and then RD *dirname*"work perfect.

Well, I had a file on my desktop that couldn't be removed by traditional means but I've got to admit that delfxpfiles did the trick (in my case the file was of 0 byte size).

Tiny but finy!
I had a similar problem with a file downloaded from an email to my desktop. I rightclicked the file, selected open. Since the file had no file association I selected Notepad, got an error message which I dismissed and told it to create a new file. Typed some jibberish in the Notepad window and exited.

The errant file now had a file association and I simply deleted it.
I had a some files in a folder that I could not delete.  If followed the below instruction from a previous post.  It deleted my folder.  I could not delete the folder because it had two files with out extensions on them!  

I just did the following:  

START | RUN | CMD
CD to your directory.

Use: DIR /X /A   to see the SHORT FILE NAMES of the files and directories there.

use:

RMDIR [/Q] [drive:]path
RD [/Q] [drive:]path

   /S      Removes all directories and files in the specified directory
           in addition to the directory itself.  Used to remove a directory
           tree.

   /Q      Quiet mode, do not ask if ok to remove a directory tree with /S

Example:

RMDIR /Q c:\progra~1\McAfee~1
RD /Q c:\progra~1\McAfee~1


My question is that I have two files on my desktop that do not have extensions on them that I cannot delete.  What msdos commands do I need to use?  

Thanks, Alan
Have you tried the suggested software listed above ?? http://www.jrtwine.com/

Delete FXP ??

Smg.
That program fixed it perfect!!! Thanks! Alan
the Delete FXP Files works wonderfully well.
I had a problem deleting files created in the recycler\nprotect folder by "Norton Protected Recycle Bin" which I was unable to delete. Delete FXP Files helped me to delete those files with ease.
Rgds..SaiJum
I was in a cygwin shell on a windows server and saw this

Amanda> ls -lsa
ls: cannot access  : No such file or directory
total 4
? ???????????  ? ?              ?       ?            ?
0 dr-xr-xr-x+ 10 IUSR_FORESITE  None    0 Dec 12  2006 .
0 drwxr-xr-x+ 20 Administrators None    0 Oct 18 11:31 ..
0 dr-xr-xr-x+  2 IUSR_FORESITE  None    0 Jan 22 11:31 File
0 dr-xr-xr-x+  2 IUSR_FORESITE  None    0 Aug 29  2006 Flash
0 dr-xr-xr-x+  2 IUSR_FORESITE  None    0 Aug 29  2006 Image
0 dr-xr-xr-x+  2 IUSR_FORESITE  None    0 Aug 29  2006 Media
0 drwxr-xr-x+  5 Administrators None    0 Oct  3 11:24 backup
4 -r-xr-xr-x+  1 IUSR_FORESITE  None 2648 Apr  4  2006 space.asp
0 dr-xr-xr-x+  2 IUSR_FORESITE  None    0 May 18  2006 upload
0 drwxr-xr-x+  2 Administrators None    0 Jan 22 11:31 xml


I had to go into command prompt to see the hidden directory.

E:\Inetpub\ssda\UserFiles>DIR /X /A
 Volume in drive E is DATA2
 Volume Serial Number is 5C8B-1561

 Directory of E:\Inetpub\ssda\UserFiles

12/12/2006  04:14 PM    <DIR>                       .
12/12/2006  04:14 PM    <DIR>                       ..
08/14/2006  02:38 PM    <DIR>          0200~1
10/03/2007  10:24 AM    <DIR>                       backup
01/22/2008  11:31 AM    <DIR>                       File
08/29/2006  04:23 PM    <DIR>                       Flash
08/29/2006  04:23 PM    <DIR>                       Image
08/29/2006  04:23 PM    <DIR>                       Media
04/03/2006  11:25 PM             2,648              space.asp
05/18/2006  12:55 PM    <DIR>                       upload
01/22/2008  11:31 AM    <DIR>                       xml
               1 File(s)          2,648 bytes
              10 Dir(s)  64,252,383,232 bytes free

Which i removed with RMDIR 0200~1
What would be the Linux command to list this correctly, or wouldn't the shell cope with the filesystem
I had a similar problem few days ago.
I used sucessfully Unlocker utility( a powerfull freeware app)  and i was able to delete the file with problem.
I successfully used the command line stuff listed above:

Use: DIR /X /A   to see the SHORT FILE NAMES of the files and directories there.

use:

RMDIR [/Q] [drive:]path
RD [/Q] [drive:]path

   /S      Removes all directories and files in the specified directory
           in addition to the directory itself.  Used to remove a directory
           tree.

   /Q      Quiet mode, do not ask if ok to remove a directory tree with /S

I had the same kind of issue on a Windows 2003 server and the deletion of the short file name worked.
Thanks guys
barnster123,
I had similiar problem and was able to get the foldername with dir /x/a, tried removing with the rmdir, but was unable.  
I took ownership of the folder, then was able to remove it.
I was unable to use the solution described above - I was still receiving 'access denied' errors.  I ended up running Process Explorer (procexp.exe) on my server, choosing 'Find' + 'Handle or DLL' and searching for that folder.  Sure enough there were several hung processes accessing that folder.  I killed them and was then able to remove the folder without issue.  
GREAT! It Worked for me!