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Fastest Way to Delete a Really BIG file

I have a windows 2000 Server, SP 4 with an 80 gig hard drive. There's very little free space left on the drive, about 100 megs. One of the files occupies 17 gig and I want to delete it. I'm wondering what's the "fastest" way to delete the file. In the past when I've tried something like this, the system has taken quite some time to delete the file, and CPU usage has gone to 100% during the delete process, sometimes as long as 20 minutes. In the past when I've deleted a file like this, I've done it remotely, via an ftp client.

If I issued the delete order via the Windows Explorer GUI, or via the command prompt, would the delete occur faster?

Thanks!

Seth

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Steve Knight

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Steve Knight

(Holding down shift stops it moving to the recycle bin BTW)

itgb

In my experience the command prompt is the fastest way to delete the file. However, this is based on perception only; I haven't conducted any tests to ensure my observations are correct.

For reviewing a really full hard drive, I use explorerXP, which is a truly tiny download (.4MB) and install and allows me to graphically browse the hard drive while showing the _Folder_ sizes, so I know where my clogs are. http://www.soft32.com/download_26301.html

HTH,
Matthew

Chris Phillips

You could try booting into the recovery console and deleting from there that way you won't have explorer doing anything to the file

Steve Knight

Thanks for the points & grade...

Steve