Can't delete file/folder

Community
1

Hi,
I have an exterternal usb harddisk as backup.
I never had problems with it, until I copied a folder lately.

The folder on my normal C drive is ok and contains normal files, while on my backup drive, it contains now weird filenames and other strange data.
I cannot seem to delete it.
I use Windows XP.
Tried in DOS commands aswel, with software like FreeCommander, DeleteDoctor, etc… but it doesn’t seem te work.

Some screenshots to show the weirdness of the files:

Error translated from Dutch to English is “cannot delete file, cannot read data from source file or source disk.”

Someone has an idea how to fix this?

Thanks in advance.

2

Have you tried reformatting the drive?

3

Not yet, I don’t have a back-up hard drive to back-up this back-up hard drive that has this problem. :slight_smile:

I certainly will have to reformat the drive eventually, but I chose it as the last option.

4

Maybe something like unlocker can help: http://www.filehippo.com/download_unlocker/
Maybe you can stick the stick into a machine with some Linux variant on it? Perhaps you might be able to delete if then?

Other than that, I’m guessing you’re saving some files with foreign characters in the filenames on a FAT16/ FAT32 usb stick?
Not sure if they support that…

5

Well, initially, the files have normal names, normal extentions etc… but those ‘corrupt’ files are totally changed with other names/extentions.

6

I assume you are protected against malware and other nastiness like viruses? Though I doubt that would be the culprit. Also I presume they aren’t some form of temporary files/folders created by a running program by any chance.

7

looks like something went wrong when you copied the files to the disk… clear all temp files and empty trash and reboot, then you could try to scan the drive with chkdsk to see if there is something wrong, or change the file and folder permissions there - or try from safe mode

8

Solved by formatting the disk.

Copied the files back to the disk, now the files and folders seem te be ‘normal’ and work properly.
No idea why they got fµcked ùp in the first place.

But a normal formatting did the trick.

9

I found that Malwarebyte unlocker works on files that just won’t go away. If ccleaner doesn’t do it Malwarebyte will.