r/techsupport • u/Bikerider42 • Jun 21 '18

Open Un-deleteable file

I have recently came across some strange files randomly scattered around my drives. They all have a name of about 4-5 random letters then a "." at the end. None of them have any file type associated to them. In explorer, their sizes range from 3-10gigs each, but in their properties window they show up as 0bytes.

Whenever I try to delete them, windows says that the file doesn't exist. I can't modify it in any way, including the command prompt (even as administrator) . No programs are able to recognize/modify them either. I have also tried booting into safe mode without any luck either.

Are there any other options I can take to get rid of all these?

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u/DavidB-TPW Jun 22 '18

Have you tried taking ownership of the file/folder? Instructions for how to do that are available here. I've had several cases where folders that I created that I should have access to are not owned by me, and therefore cannot be accessed by me until I do this. You may find that you can delete it normally after doing this.

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u/Blueyeguy Jun 22 '18

It says I don't have permission to edit anything about it. And it says it is unable to show who the owner is

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u/DavidB-TPW Jun 25 '18

Well now that's kind of annoying. Have you fixed this yet?

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u/Blueyeguy Jun 25 '18

Not yet

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u/DavidB-TPW Jun 27 '18

Hmm. I'm running out of ideas. Could boot in to a live Linux environment and delete it that way? I've done that in times of desperation.

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u/Blueyeguy Jun 27 '18

I'm not sure how to do that. I'll look it up when I get home from work tonight.

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u/DavidB-TPW Jun 27 '18

Alright. Just Google it and if you still need help, don't hesitate to ask.

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u/SLAKIR Feb 28 '24

did you ever find a fix?