Deleting undeletable/weird files

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Deleting undeletable/weird files
	NickB Newbie (23 Posts) 7/25/2001 6:11:52 PM	This is the weirdest thing I've ever seen... I have two files in a temp folder and I simply cannot delete or move them. Now, we're not talking locked files that are used by another process... these files are not used by any process since they do not have a filehandle registered anywhere and the error message is different. When I try to delete it or move it, I get the following error: "Cannot read from the source file or disk" The files are also very strange... it appears that they have some kind of a charcater appended to the end of it. They look somehting like: "image1.gif " in Explorer instead of "image1.gif" which means that there is some character there that the filesystem cannot recognize or something. Is there a way to get rid of these files without formatting the disk? Is there a util out there that could del these weird files? Thanks!

	ahodes1 Newbie (19 Posts) 7/25/2001 6:48:15 PM	I have the same prob :( it was in my FTP... its a Unix hack that was uploaded... don't know the details of your prob but I can't delete them either same error message :(

	Michael Senior Poster (297 Posts) 7/25/2001 6:48:40 PM	Were they created with the Alt+255 trick? Go to that folder in DOS, and try renaming them to "happy." Visual Aid: C:\WINDOWS\TEMP>rename image1.gif{Alt+255} happy.gif Press Alt+255 where it says.

	ahodes1 Newbie (19 Posts) 7/25/2001 6:53:13 PM	Didn't work for me :(

	NickB Newbie (23 Posts) 7/25/2001 7:10:04 PM	ahodes1, I think we're in the same boat. I have the exact same problem in the ftproot/pub dir as well. Warez kiddies have been stealing my bandwidth I guess and used some tricks or something to prevent deletions.

	Michael Senior Poster (297 Posts) 7/25/2001 7:14:30 PM	Ouch. I hate people that steal bandwidth. And I HATE Warez Kiddies and 133t 4x0rz. What are they doing?

	NickB Newbie (23 Posts) 7/25/2001 7:21:48 PM	They've been uploading some games and mp3s... I just noticed that this particular machine has 2 gigs of files like this. If I don't figure out whaqt to do with this stuff I'll have reformat. PS: This is on NTFS partition. Don't think it matters but who knows?!

	NickB Newbie (23 Posts) 7/25/2001 7:21:50 PM	[sorry for double post] This post was edited by NickB on Wednesday, July 25, 2001 at 18:22.

	Michael Senior Poster (297 Posts) 7/25/2001 7:25:54 PM	All the files are like that in Explorer? The only time 've ever heard of it was with the Alt 255 trick people do to keep files from being deleted. Tell me what happens.

	NickB Newbie (23 Posts) 7/25/2001 7:28:09 PM	Yep, all of them. No, it's not alt+255 trick... you can move files like that and delete them etc. You can't even rename these files. They're completely untouchable. I can't even read in the filenames from a VB app that I just made. Simply ridiculous!

	Michael Senior Poster (297 Posts) 7/25/2001 7:35:06 PM	Try searching the MS Knowledge Base is all I can say now. You can find anything in there.

	NickB Newbie (23 Posts) 7/25/2001 7:50:06 PM	This is what KB came up with: http://search.support.microsoft.com/kb/psssearch.asp?SPR=win2000&T=B&KT=ALL&T1=7d&LQ=Cannot+read+from+the+source+file+or+disk&S=F&A=T&DU=C&FR=0&D=ntrelease&LPR=&LNG=ENG&VR=http%3A%2F%2Fsupport.microsoft.com%2Fsupport%3Bhttp%3A%2F%2Fsupport.microsoft.com%2Fservicedesks%2Fwebcasts%3Bhttp%3A%2F%2Fsupport.microsoft.com%2Fhighlights&CAT=Support&VRL=ENG&SA=GN&Go.x=39&Go.y=25 None of these solutions are even close :\

	Michael Senior Poster (297 Posts) 7/25/2001 7:57:08 PM	That's probably one of the problems with the KB. You have to type things like "ms56hka5" to get even close to what you want. Maybe formatting isn't such a bad idea.

	ahodes1 Newbie (19 Posts) 7/25/2001 8:17:58 PM	Since mine are only folders, I'm not too worried bout them... Someone on #windows2000 on DALnet said that it was a Unix hack, and the user creates a folder or file with an invalid name, so Windows can't touch it :( He didn't know of any way to fix it... Maybe you could do something if you booted UNIX or LINUX, but as far as I know they can't read NTFS anyways.... Also I tried Recovery Console but to no avail, Windows really can't touch it... This post was edited by ahodes1 on Wednesday, July 25, 2001 at 19:24.

	zeke Newbie (3 Posts) 7/26/2001 6:51:44 AM	have you tried to delete in failsafe mode?

	Daniel Newbie (36 Posts) 7/29/2001 11:14:11 AM	I had the same problem with a folder, I went into safe mode and it got rid of them. If that doesn't work, get into command prompt and delete it. That was the OS can't say its using it.

	rache Newbie (1 Posts) 8/22/2001 3:55:12 PM	Had this same problem - some s'kiddies had uploaded a bunch of crap to my FTP server and had dumped it into a directory named with just a space. Couldn't delete, move, or rename it through any mechanism I tried. Found an article on the MS Knowledge Base, but it was of limited value since it basically said to contact them for the fix (at $250 a pop of course.) Not a good use of money when I could just reformat the drive (ALWAYS keep your inetpub directory on a seperate partition away from everything else.) I'll try to post the specific URL when I find it again. The article did mention one interesting thing: Apparently, any character is valid for a filename to the underlying NTFS system, but some characters cannot be properly read by the win32 interface (for instance, the \ is a reserved character.) Anyway, I wasn't ready to reformat yet. I had strong evidence in my logs that these guys were from France (based on filenames and running nslookup on their IP addresses) and suspected that maybe they had used a French character in the filename that I couldn't display properly, but I didn't want to add in the French keyboard / display pack (and I kind of doubted this would help me anyway.) So I did some more looking. Eventually I stumbled on a little used switch for the directory command: dir /x This switch displays the short filenames for files and directories. Suspicious, I ran the command against suspect directory and came up with this: 08/22/2001 09:38a <DIR> . 08/22/2001 09:38a <DIR> .. 08/22/2001 09:37a <DIR> 0200~1 08/22/2001 08:24a <DIR> Mottaz Pretty interesting short filename. After that, it was simply a matter of removing the directory using the short filename instead: rmdir 0200~1 Problem solved. Sorry about the long winded response. Post here if you try this method and it works.

	NickB Newbie (23 Posts) 8/22/2001 4:18:15 PM	rache: WOW!!!! It actually worked! I've tried numerous utilities and various tools and none of them worked! Your method worked perfectly! I used 'rmdir /s' and I removed all of the stuff. My problem were not directories but files that were in there (files had \ escape characters in filename). I have not formated the drive (too much work) so I just left it there. I managed to remove it with rmdir (deltree and recursive del didn't work). Thank you! Nick

	wkasdo Newbie (44 Posts) 8/23/2001 3:40:44 AM	There is another trick to play when you have files that Win32 cannot delete due to strange filenames: use the Posix subsystem, i.e. the rm.exe tool from the Server CD (or the reskit, I forget). This will allow you to remove individual files.

	RedAvenger Master Poster (1147 Posts) 8/23/2001 10:09:45 AM	This is a good thread way to go Rache!!!

	Night Tiger Newbie (1 Posts) 9/2/2001 6:19:25 PM	Thank you so much, Rache!!! I had the same problem. The user was identified as WarezPure on my system.

	jdavep Newbie (1 Posts) 10/2/2001 6:10:24 PM	...i hope somebody else is still reading this thread... ...it did work like a charm for most of my files too...(same scenario as above, even down to the french warez kiddies)... ...but there is one dir left...for some reason, i can't get it even with the shortened dos name...i assume that it's because of the number of characters...the folder appears as "french " in windows, and as french~1 through the prompt...do i really need to boot from a DOS disk?... ...i'm re-examining the sharing and security right now...maybe that will turn up something...

	Bhavin Newbie (1 Posts) 10/4/2001 3:00:47 AM	Hi, I think I have the solution...read on! I found this forum to be the most informative while I was trying to do the same thing that most of you have experienced. Somehow I a bunch of directories appeared in my Temp folder that I didn't recognize. I had FTP running so I'm sure it was a hack. The folders looked similiar to what most of you have described... i.e 0200~1/~/AUX/NUL I was able to remove most of the files by using del with the /s option and rmdir with the /s option but I couldn't remove the directories mentioned above (AUX/NUL) I found an article on the microsoft site that helped. I thought I would share it for those who may be still struggling. The address is http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q120/7/16.ASP. The article states that you can't remove files with reserved driver names (i.e AUX, CON...etc) since a check of reserved words is performed any time you perform a file/dir operation. Fortunately, another option exist to bypass the normal reserve-word checks altogether. You may access your directories via Universal Naming Convention (UNC). Here is what you need to do: For example, you can possibly delete any file with a command such as: DEL \\.\driveletter:\path\filename or remove any directory with RMDIR \\.\driveletter:\path\filename Here is what I used: RMDIR \\.\c:\0200~1\~\aux \con Good luck to all of you...hope this helps! Bhavin

	WillO Newbie (1 Posts) 10/4/2001 6:47:36 PM	Rache and Behavin, you guys are the bomb!! I've been fighting this problem for more than a year now and nothing but reformatting seemed to work, and I got tired of that. If there is anything I can do for you guys, please let me know. Thanks a Bunch WillO

	KnightHawk Senior Poster (284 Posts) 10/25/2001 4:21:03 AM	OMG you people ROCK THE SERVERROOM! I've had this problem for months on one box and tried various method.. even booted unix with an ntfs driver ... anyway your solutions fixed the problem that MS support could not.. where should I send the 249$ check. Omg I just cant belive I found the anwser here..lol I was just trowling around on the boards.. BAM! lol that how life works sometimes I guess.. You ARE the bomb.

	BimKif Newbie (1 Posts) 10/30/2001 4:33:01 PM	Hello guys, It's quite funny to see administrator-side reactions. All your problems come from Warez FTP war. In the fantastic (hmmm) world of warez, we scan for ip range in order to find public FTP servers wich allow uploading so that we can upload stuff on it for other people. So you havn't been hacked, it's just that there was anonymous access allowed on your servers. But because there's ftp stealing (yes, in the warez world the public ftp is owned by the first who find it ...) some people have used a bug on windows server that allows to create directories or files with illegal name ("COM1", "AUX", "LPT1", or names with spaces or dots at the end ...) by FTP or under DOS command prompt. This is a way to protect uploaded files and to hide the path. Just try a little in dos prompt and you will be able to make such directories and to play with it. Then you will understand how it works. P.S: This is just 1 trick that is used in the Warez FTP world, there are many others like this.

	jdhughes Newbie (1 Posts) 11/1/2001 2:32:11 AM	Hats Off to you guys! I've wasted nearly a week on this problem and was getting ready to throw in the towel and reformat (which would have been a REAL MESS!). I have about 5 gigs of cheap german porn on my server! This post was edited by jdhughes on Thursday, November 01, 2001 at 01:32.

	dougmccormick Newbie (1 Posts) 11/18/2001 4:46:14 PM	Thanks a bunch for the info on deleting these nasty directories. It helped me clean off a bunch, but now I have some bad named directories that wont let me delete even with the dir /x names, it tells me access denied. I have tried all types of things, from changing the names, even just changing into the directories and all I get is access denied. Is there some security application that will use the real name to give the administrator authority to delete or remove these files? I have shut down my anonymous ftp server and I guess permanently thanks to these Warez FTP guys.

	macfu Newbie (1 Posts) 11/27/2001 12:53:47 AM	this thread is very helpful! i've been dealing with this at several clients. one strategy that works if you need anonymous ftp is to restrict by ip address if you have some idea where the folks who need to access your site will be coming from. also, the great folks over at winternals.com have two utilities that have proven valuable in being able to boot an nt box to a command prompt to delete these files/folders: ERD Commander and NTFS DOS Pro. but, the only folder i've come across that I cannot do anything about is one that starts with 2 spaces and then has 250 odd periods following it. any ideas? lastly, these warez skiddies (always associated with skidmarks in my book, you know which ones) arguments about anon ftp being public space blah blah blah is crap. when they irresponsibly consume all the space and then cry about being locked out they deserve it. babies.

	AvgUser Newbie (2 Posts) 2/5/2002 2:52:22 AM	Being a Good admin, the first thing you do when building any box is disable everything that isnt important. Unfortunately, I managed to enable FTP on my win2k adv srv for about 3 hours one night while my "Friend" uploaded an ISO file that I needed. During this period some jackass from, you guessed it France, deleted this very file and added his own directory structure... Sweet, now the entire subnet is Perma-blocked along with 94% of the old @home network (CodeRed & Nimda)... Like you, I struggled with many ways to resolve the issue... Tried the 8.3 trick, rmdir /x/s/eyekillyoo, boot to command line, deltree, every utility under the sun, mounted under linux (Need to learn more about that too) with no luck... Finally, my personal XP consultant in a little Tuscon call center for MS found me this tool... renamer.ex_ (40,960Bytes) Wiped out all the crazy charachters, funked up permissions, etc... Haven't had any luck finding the origin of the file, but I would be happy to distribute to 10 or so people who could host it somewhere... Figure one in 10 could actually follow thru on it...<G> Shoot me a note. AnyWay, Enjoy!

	B Newbie (81 Posts) 2/5/2002 4:03:58 AM	Perhaps it's this one? http://download.cnet.com/downloads/0-10096-100-2816354.html?tag=st.dl.10001-103-1.lst-5-1.2816354 I've used it for years, with great success. Enjoy, B

	AvgUser Newbie (2 Posts) 2/13/2002 1:02:59 AM	Nope, Sorry thats not it... The file I have is is 40K uncompressed... Actually I think I tried to use this one too...<Smirk> Downloads: 55,049 Publisher: Frilans Date added: September 19, 2000 File size: 216K; Clock this download License: Free Minimum requirements: Windows 95/98/NT

	Oberon LaFey Newbie (1 Posts) 3/18/2002 12:11:39 PM	This is seen on boards like this everywhere. And the total solution is so simple. 1.) Boot up a Linux/UNIX box. 2.) Boot the affected system with a Linux/UNIX bootable Floppy. 3.) Mount the affected partionion via the network on the Linux/UNIX box. 4.) Navigate to the undesired directory in GNOME or KDE desktop environment and right click delete. Linux/UNIX Could care less what you name a directory with one exception that I will not publish here as there are enough people who already know. TUX rules Microsoft fools.

	capp2002 Newbie (1 Posts) 4/24/2002 4:18:04 PM	Has anybody anywhere got a solution to this problem short of building up a Linux box? I called Microsoft at $245.00 and they told be to re-format and re-install Win2k.

	astorrs Frequent Poster (168 Posts) 4/25/2002 1:01:32 PM	roche, if all you need is a hotfix that is not publically available and is for a known bug, yes you have to pay $245, but they credit your card afterwards... so in the end its free...

	0s0n3gr0 Newbie (1 Posts) 7/11/2002 7:42:42 AM	I don't know if it would help but this hack may be exploiting the fact that NTFS and Win2k/NT support POSIX and OS/2 subsystems. I know that several features are available/needed only in a POSIX environment. For example the default group setting in the UserMgr/ADUC MMC is only used by the POSIX subsystem. These sub systems can be disabled by removing their registry values under the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\SubSystems key. You may want to export the key beforehand in case you want to restore it. These subsystems are only there for reverse compatibilty and you can find more information on the MS web site. It was a security measure I used to teach in my MCSE classes. Good Luck Shannon McCoy

	shubee Newbie (1 Posts) 8/2/2002 11:21:29 AM	Hi, I need some help with this. I had someone hack in and create some directories, for storing their MP3's, with a leading period. Looks like this: . tagged There's a total of 9 characters in the name. I cannot delete or change directories. I tried alt 255 after the period and after the D. Also, deep into the structure there were 8 files I was unable to delete. The message I got was "cannot read form source file or disk". I did a “LS –a” on the . tagged directory and it said permission denied. That Dir will not give me the tab for NTFS permissions Thanks for the help, Dave S.

	Oblong Newbie (2 Posts) 8/27/2002 3:24:56 PM	I was having the same problems. I tried everything I could find on the net, including the suggestions here. I finally used the program linked to above, from CNET, and used that to rename all the directories and files that I could. I renamed them to something with only 3 letters, to make it easy when working in DOS. I deleted 40 files that looked to be the movieBLADE II, in French. Once I emptied that directory, I was able to delete it using the rmdir command. The hangup in trying what was suggested here and in other places was that the bottom directory containing the files had a weird name to it, that even when in 8.3 DOS format still had a ".FRE" extension to it. I would do a dir /x and in the column where it would list the 8.3 name, it still said something like "BLADEI~1.FRE" I could not get into that directory in DOS, I tried everything. The rename program linked above allowed me to rename. Once inside, I renamed all the files then deleted them in DOS using just a DEL command. I then deleted the directory using rmdir. I worked my way back to the beginning. I still have one directory that I can't get rid of, but it's empty so I'm not worried. Thanks to everybody here for their feedback. Hopefully my humble suggestions will help others.

	Oblong Newbie (2 Posts) 8/27/2002 3:25:03 PM	I was having the same problems. I tried everything I could find on the net, including the suggestions here. I finally used the program linked to above, from CNET, and used that to rename all the directories and files that I could. I renamed them to something with only 3 letters, to make it easy when working in DOS. I deleted 40 files that looked to be the movieBLADE II, in French. Once I emptied that directory, I was able to delete it using the rmdir command. The hangup in trying what was suggested here and in other places was that the bottom directory containing the files had a weird name to it, that even when in 8.3 DOS format still had a ".FRE" extension to it. I would do a dir /x and in the column where it would list the 8.3 name, it still said something like "BLADEI~1.FRE" I could not get into that directory in DOS, I tried everything. The rename program linked above allowed me to rename. Once inside, I renamed all the files then deleted them in DOS using just a DEL command. I then deleted the directory using rmdir. I worked my way back to the beginning. I still have one directory that I can't get rid of, but it's empty so I'm not worried. Thanks to everybody here for their feedback. Hopefully my humble suggestions will help others.

	Gogge Newbie (1 Posts) 9/15/2002 12:46:16 AM	Somewhat similar to what happened to me, I had to change the permissions of the folder. The permissions on the 'Warez war l33t hax0r' folder, named 'com1', were of some nonexistant bogus user so I could not just delete it. The naming convention / subsystem reserved names prevented windows from changing the permissions on the subfolders of 'com1' but not the com1 folder itself so i took ownership of the com1 folder. After that renaming 'com1' with UNC (rename \\.\c:\l33tstuff\com1\ blaha) worked fine and I could use "take ownership" under security->advanced for the subfolders. Then it was just shift+delete on the folder. Hope that might help the rest of you. /Gogge

	Combat Carl Newbie (1 Posts) 9/15/2002 2:47:31 AM	BTW, after dealing with this myself and none of the commands working, I noticed that XP Pro may require you to be in safe mode to run the rmdir command. Came to this solution after noticing one of the commands also specified there were processes in use. Figured that may help some people who are having access denied errors.

	flygao Newbie (5 Posts) 9/19/2002 5:11:17 AM	Um. I have some other problem It's same sort of problem, but somehow I found a folder in my FTP folder where it got no name. I can't delete it in normal mode/ safe mode/ command prompt... any ideas ? it's just got no name and I can't even rename it because it says the folder not found, and when i force delete it in DOS now, it says folder access denied...

	tsarge Newbie (1 Posts) 11/9/2004 9:21:57 AM	Hi guys, Just had an entertaining day removing all traces of tagging from an open Win 2K - running IIS 5. Needless to say the server is no longer open... here are the steps I went through. downloaded takeown.exe http://www.dynawell.com/support/ResKit/win2k.asp) (unzip and copy into Winnt directory) make sure you are logged in as the admin for this... open a command prompt (type cmd from start/run and hit enter) Change Directory to your ftproot folder (eg cd \inet\ftp) 1) dir /x (hit enter - this shows the list of folders with the 8.3 format) (you'll see the offending folders with names like 0202~1) using 0202~1 as the example type: takeown 0202~1 (hit enter - and if all goes well you should see) Successful, protection removed 2) cd 0202~1 (hit enter) 3) dir /x 4) takeown 0202~1 (basically repeat the steps until you find the last directory) (our eg C:\Inetpub\ftproot\0202~1\0202~1\0202~1\0202~1\0202~1\com1) this is where I hit a snag - takeown worked on the folder named com1 - but I couldn't change into the directory as it's a reserved name. None of the rd \\.\C:\...... /S /Q or rm -rd commands worked - which suggested to me there were more folders under the com1 folder that had had their ownerships changed. next try to change the folder name of the com1 folder rename \\.\c:\inetpub\ftproot1\0202~1\0202~1\0202~1\0202~1\0202~1\com1 test takeown test repeat steps above to find the last folder - in my case only one folder more... c:\inetpub\ftproot1\0202~1\0202~1\0202~1\0202~1\0202~1\test\1111 takeown on that... then type cd \inet\ftp rd 0202~1 /S /Q (this will only work when all folders have had the ownership replaced) dir /x (0202~1 no longer there) just repeat for multiple tags... the machine I was fixing had been tagged 5 times... hope this helps...

	halprikket Newbie (1 Posts) 12/26/2004 3:42:17 PM	hmmm. i also have some bit of a problem, the hackers, as usual, made 10 subfolders inside of the origonal the first one named ta14583 ;;;. using the directions mentioned by rache, i went and found the short name in the comand promt: TA1458~1 ater trying to delete it several ways (including rmdir) it gave me the same error: The directory is not empty THE HELL IT ISNT! i checked multiple time and there is NOTHING inside... 0kb is being used, 0 files inside according to my comp, is it possible to make an invis file? if so thats kinda scary... i have not tryed takeown yet but i will try now... (btw there we files inside the subdirectories that i deleted, i dont see anymore)

	supposer Newbie (1 Posts) 1/9/2005 2:19:05 AM	All of these posts @ssume I have physical access to the FTP server. What if I manage it remotely? If ftp was used to create the directories & files, can't ftp be used to delete them? If someone with anonymous access (unfortunately left open) can create them, can't someone with administrator access (me) delete them? If not, what moron created a system that gives an error message when you try to delete or change directory to a folder but doesn't give that same message when you try to create it? Does anyone know of any FTP tools that will cut through the weird name crap and delete these files using their true names? I'll even use the warez-kiddies own tools to get rid of the junk if that is all that is capable of doing it.

	H.A.R.M. Newbie (1 Posts) 1/18/2005 9:23:50 PM	alright finally a simple way! go herehttp://www.jrtwine.com/Products/DelFXPFiles/ get the program install it buy the registration key.... because if you got a crack that was available through a google search it wouldn't be legal! open the prgram delete/ take ownership/ or whatever do what ever you want with the files! -work smarter, not harder.

	Valorale Newbie (1 Posts) 2/10/2005 10:43:36 AM	QUOTE: Originally Posted by halprikket: ater trying to delete it several ways (including rmdir) it gave me the same error: The directory is not empty THE HELL IT ISNT! Had the same problem at first, so I added an /s switch at the end so it would look like this dir /x random files displayed see the one I want to delete rmdir badfolder~1 /s and the rest is history

	Littlelegs Newbie (1 Posts) 2/21/2005 7:31:27 PM	One thing to note... It isn't only the issue of having an FTP server but whether anonymous login is allowed write privileges in the directory on the virtual server. Oh and by the way the dir /x worked fine for me but I also had done Security tab > Take ownership of folder and all sub-folders which maybe why it worked easily for me in deleting a structure that was about 8 folders deep.

	nomi Newbie (2 Posts) 3/5/2005 10:57:19 PM	Bhavin .. u rock ... after wasting a whole day... i looked at the microsot link posted by bhavin ... it totally worked for me .... try this ... im sure it ll work for u too RmDir \\.\C:\YourFTP_ROOT's_PATH\someFolder /s /q GOOD LUcK nomi

	DrSlash Newbie (1 Posts) 3/17/2005 1:47:44 PM	This was quite simple for me I had a folder named com1 and a flolder with no name Warez junk Ect... I moved all the files in the FTP directory that were mine to a safe place opened a CMD window changed to the directory containing the offending files and folders then simply typed --> ERASE /s /q /-p . This erases all files and subdirectories in the current directory without question. If you would like to be prompted then omit the /-p or use /p instead all folders and files gone - no problem I don't know why erase works and del and rmdir don't but who cares?

	humbads Newbie (1 Posts) 3/18/2005 1:33:32 PM	Hello, I wrote a free program to fix this problem. It just recursively renames all the undeletable files in a folder to names that are deletable. You can get more information and download it from my website at: http://www.somacon.com/p132.php Regards, Shailesh This post was last edited by humbads on Wednesday, May 18, 2005 at 12:30:17 AM.

	htown Newbie (1 Posts) 6/22/2005 5:36:16 PM	Hey guys I had the same problem, whilehttp://www.somacon.com/p132.php will work it is kind of high tech. If that is to much for you try this it is easy and fast....not only do you have the option to rename but you can delete it directly! http://www.download.com/Rename-It/3000-2248_4-10148114.html?tag=lst-0-22

	jeppe2day Newbie (1 Posts) 7/22/2005 9:28:52 AM	This is a very informative thread so i would like to add my special problem to it too. I have had 2 very strange files on my Windows XP. They appeared to be system files in Explorer but they couldn't be erased nor taken ownership of or anything else. They didn't appear in dos and that lead to the solution. Since it didn't show in dos I couldn't delete the files and since it had som kind of lock on the dir I couldn't delete the dir in the normal way either. The way I did it was: rmdir c:\path\dir_with_ghost_files\. Are you sure? Y/N Y The dir and ghost files goes to bit-heaven Jeppe2day

	joeuntel Newbie (1 Posts) 10/20/2005 1:12:08 PM	QUOTE: Originally Posted by Bhavin: Hi, I think I have the solution...read on! I found this forum to be the most informative while I was trying to do the same thing that most of you have experienced. Somehow I a bunch of directories appeared in my Temp folder that I didn't recognize. I had FTP running so I'm sure it was a hack. The folders looked similiar to what most of you have described... i.e 0200~1/~/AUX/NUL I was able to remove most of the files by using del with the /s option and rmdir with the /s option but I couldn't remove the directories mentioned above (AUX/NUL) I found an article on the microsoft site that helped. I thought I would share it for those who may be still struggling. The address is http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q120/7/16.ASP. The article states that you can't remove files with reserved driver names (i.e AUX, CON...etc) since a check of reserved words is performed any time you perform a file/dir operation. Fortunately, another option exist to byp@ss the normal reserve-word checks altogether. You may access your directories via Universal Naming Convention (UNC). Here is what you need to do: For example, you can possibly delete any file with a command such as: DEL \\.\driveletter:\path\filename or remove any directory with RMDIR \\.\driveletter:\path\filename Here is what I used: RMDIR \\.\c:\0200~1\~\aux \con Good luck to all of you...hope this helps! Bhavin ---------------------------------- I had 4gig of hidden files on a ftp folder, in a folder tree with undreds of folders. I found that since it's a new job here and I look about everything on the servers. Yes it work pretty well with this command rmdir d:\rn\ftproot\[~Hacked by N$R0...] /s Hourra! Sylvain ---------------------------------------------- Sylvain Breton

	maximiliano Newbie (2 Posts) 11/3/2005 11:57:50 PM	I'm sorry to bother you guys. I'm having the same f... problem but I have no idea how to delete the file. My problem is that when I try to find the file under Command Prompt, I can't, because the file is unexistent under DOS. The file's name is CAYBEJIP. It's located here C:\Documents and settings\Isadora-maxi\Desktop....... the file is suposed to be there. Could you please tell me what exactly I need to do. I apreciate your help. Thanks!!!!!!!!!

	buddhacris Newbie (1 Posts) 11/12/2005 10:37:58 PM	QUOTE: Originally Posted by maximiliano: I'm sorry to bother you guys. I'm having the same f... problem but I have no idea how to delete the file. My problem is that when I try to find the file under Command Prompt, I can't, because the file is unexistent under DOS. The file's name is CAYBEJIP. It's located here C:\Documents and settings\Isadora-maxi\Desktop....... the file is suposed to be there. Could you please tell me what exactly I need to do. I apreciate your help. Thanks!!!!!!!!! I was having the exact same problem, and after having tried a bunch of renaming programs, i found this onehttp://www.purgeie.com/delinv.htm and it was easily able to see and delete the offending files. Hopefully this'll help you.

	maximiliano Newbie (2 Posts) 11/15/2005 7:53:19 PM	eyyy buddhacris !!!! you are awesome !!!!!! I'd been trying to delete that file for weeks. That page was more than helpful. I downloaded delinvfile.exe click on the file and that was all. Thank you sooo much!!!! maximiliano ---------------------------------------------- maximiliano

	nomi Newbie (2 Posts) 2/12/2008 5:16:50 AM	None of the methods listed here won't work. I have files with : sign in them, like c: and z: on an NTFS volume.

	ExistenceGuest Newbie (1 Posts) 5/1/2008 12:12:31 PM	it really weired seehttp://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=320081 Cause 6: The file name includes an invalid name in the Win32 name space You may not be able to delete a file if the file name includes an invalid name (for example, the file name has a trailing space or a trailing period or the file name is made up of a space only). To resolve this issue, use a tool that uses the appropriate internal syntax to delete the file. You can use the "\\?\" syntax with some tools to operate on these files, for example: del "\\?\c:\path_to_file_that contains a trailing space.txt " The cause of this issue is similar to Cause 4. However, if you use typical Win32 syntax to open a file that has trailing spaces or trailing periods in its name, the trailing spaces or periods are stripped before the actual file is opened. Therefore, if you have two files in the same folder named "AFile.txt" and "AFile.txt " (note the space after the file name), if you try to open the second file by using standard Win32 calls, you open the first file instead. Similarly, if you have a file whose name is just " " (a space character) and you try to open it by using standard Win32 calls, you open the file's parent folder instead. In this situation, if you try to change security settings on these files, you either may not be able to do this or you may unexpectedly change the settings on different files. If this behavior occurs, you may think that you have permission to a file that actually has a restrictive ACL.

	wangmengyu Newbie (1 Posts) 12/8/2008 9:35:55 AM	my experience is using chkdsk. At that time, a directory under root corrupted with weird named files. Label is G: first, I use unlocker to unlock all the cd G: chkdsk /f then chkdsk turned this weird named files into some .CHK files, then I can delete them.