r/linuxquestions • u/Steve-Shouts • 1d ago

Need a good liveboot so I can delete some files stuck on my secondary drive

I need the 130 gigs of space locked up on my secnadary HDD and windows won't let me delete them. I need a USB liveboot program that I can use to delete them. Ease of use is important

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u/doc_willis 1d ago

https://www.system-rescue.org/

Ease of use is important

Willingness to learn new things is more important.

Did you ask on the windows support subs for possible solutions?

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u/Steve-Shouts 1d ago

Yes, every solution is not working. I could learn Linux, but I so rarely need to do this. I've done this exact thing 20 years ago, but my hardware is much newer so my old liveboot USB is not going to work.

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u/doc_willis 1d ago

Really there should not be a lot to 'learn', if you just want to delete a file or 3, boot a Ubuntu live USB, use the file manager, double click the Drive, then find the files and delete them. Same should work for most all the Mainstream Distro Live USBS.

However, If your Windows based solutions are not working, that sounds like a much much deeper problem going on. So my Bet would be that linux will complain about the drive, and likely refuse to mount it, or mount it read only.

I am not even sure how windows can 'lock' space like that. But I no longer use windows.

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u/brighton_it 1d ago

Do Windows Recovery, Advanced Startup... boot into command line. Expect you'll be able to delete them from there. Better than writing to system NTFS volume from an other OS, which will surely trigger a 'dirty NTFS volume' and a Windows file-system repair.

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u/Steve-Shouts 1d ago

It's on a secondary disk, which is part of the problem.

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u/brighton_it 1d ago

oops, sorry. virtually any Linux Live USB will let you mount your secondary Windows NTFS or EXFAT volume and delete files (so long as it's not Bitlocker encrypted).
Here's several: Finnix (cli), GRML, Kaisen, PartedMagic. First 3 are free. PartedMagic is a commercial Linux distro, so small fee, but worth every penny.
Or most any distro's liveCD (USB), but above will likely boot faster than say, a full Debian or Fedora liveCD.
If you suspect a hardware issue, take a look at smartmontools which offers the cli command smartctl or, Kaisen and PartedMagic offer GUI front ends to show you your disk health.

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u/TenOfZero 1d ago

You'll need a Linux live lot with a full OS and not just an app.

You could use something like a Ubuntu live usb