Undeleatable folder

Right; I have tried unlocker and it does nothing.

I started up again in safe mode with net working and tried the right click context menus of AVG - freezes when it opens, Malware byes counted up to 1500+ objects before I stopped it. Spybot wants to upgrade to paid before it will do anything.

So far Superanti spyware right click context menu will bring up a list of folders for deleting but it then wants me add files for deleting.

Avast right click context menu offer nothing useful.

I tired to modify all the properties of the folder to facilitate deleting but many cant be changed (greyed out)

Would 'safe mode' be better than 'Safe mode with Networking"?

I'm running windows 7 Home edition. My disc is partitioned, one part for win 7 and programs, the other for my data. This is where the offending folder is. Its a high level folder n the partition in the sense that I have on high level folder in that partition and then 1-9 subfolders with various names. In these I place all the related data.

The offending folder is one of the 1 - 9 folders, lets say no 4. No. 4 folder has 4 sub folders. All the subfolders in No 4 folder are simply repeats of No. 4 folder as structured.

right clicking No 4 folder shows 0 MB in the properties, but using the standard right click delete function it says some file names are too long to be deleted and that I should shorten them so there is obviously files in them. I think the No. 4 folder is growing in size each time I tell something to scan it because it finds more and more objects. If I'm not mistaken it will grow and take up all my disc space and then what?

Thank for ideas in advance.

a reply to: Azureblue

First off - running that much anti-virus / anti-spyware at once can lock even a healthy system down. I would ditch everything, for now, except for Malwarebytes.

Run Malwarebytes in Chameleon mode and allow it to finish and clean no matter how long it takes.

Once that's done picking up the pieces and getting things normalized will be a logical next step. For now your machine is too messed up to do much with.

Like hefficide wrote already, using two or more antivirus tools at once can cause conflicts and lockups.
Do you have a recovery disk or a bootable windows disk?
If I were you, I would take the system down and do a fresh install. Even fresh partitions if you´re at it.
I would not trust the systems integrity anymore. Backup your files on your DATA partition and kill every partition then setup a new partition table in the windows setup assistent how you like it.
I hope you can do it yourself or have a friend that will do it for you.

Otherwise there are many tutorials, simply print one out or load it to your smartphone so you have "real life access" to the informations if something goes wrong.

a reply to: Azureblue

Well today I started up in safe mode with networking and downloaded a hand full of free folder shredders, One worked which was "Free File Shredder' but I had to go through and tick each and every 600 files to delete them.

Finally got there late today but to no avail as they have all simply re-appeared.

I later found I could delete all but the first folder through one of the SuperAnti Spyware modules but nothing seems to be able to delete it. Unlocker would not touch it. When one program deleted most of them it said the (first) folder, I think it was, was a root folder. Dunno what that means.

running out of ideas here people.

thanks for help received so far.
cheers

a reply to: verschickter

getting close to backing up the entire data partition to an external disc and formatting the disc.

originally posted by: Hefficide
a reply to: Azureblue

First off - running that much anti-virus / anti-spyware at once can lock even a healthy system down. I would ditch everything, for now, except for Malwarebytes.

Run Malwarebytes in Chameleon mode and allow it to finish and clean no matter how long it takes.

Once that's done picking up the pieces and getting things normalized will be a logical next step. For now your machine is too messed up to do much with.

thanks, is Chameleon mode available in the free edition of the program? I've not seen Chameleon mode in there.

a reply to: Azureblue

"root" on windows would be your drive/partitions "main folder", meaning it´s the highest folder, for example c: or d:

a reply to: Azureblue

Chameleon is available in the free version. It will be in the malwarebytes folder - in a subfolder called "Chameleon" just open the folder and look for "chameleon . exe" That runs Malwarebytes with a random executable name - as some malware is smart enough to know when you're running known malware tools and can avoid being detected. By using chameleon mode this avoids that possibility.

originally posted by: verschickter
a reply to: Azureblue

"root" on windows would be your drive/partitions "main folder", meaning it´s the highest folder, for example c: or d:

Thanks, but this folder is not in my C drive, its in my H drive, my data partition. I dunno why a root folder would be in my data partition ??

originally posted by: Hefficide
a reply to: Azureblue

Chameleon is available in the free version. It will be in the malwarebytes folder - in a subfolder called "Chameleon" just open the folder and look for "chameleon . exe" That runs Malwarebytes with a random executable name - as some malware is smart enough to know when you're running known malware tools and can avoid being detected. By using chameleon mode this avoids that possibility.

thanks for that.
cheers

a reply to: azureblue

Simply: root folder is the highest folder you can get to.
regardless if its c: d: or z: or h:, everyone has its root folder.

If you think of unix systems you could say "Workspace/Mycomputer" could be considered some kind of root folder because: Unix handles partitions like folders and you can mount them everywhere (on any folder you´d like).

It´s what microsoft calls now space contingency. You can have a folder on a partition A and it´s getting full, so you can mount another drive/partition B(empty or not) into this folder on partition A and you have that space from B aviable in that folder on A.

If this folder keeps reappearing, there is a chance Windows is creating it because it is needed/expected to be there.

a reply to: secret titan
Or any other code that runs on the machine that wants the folder to be there...
In case of windows, it could be Azureblue set his TMP folders or such to the path of that undeleteable folder. I asked him via PM but he did not answered this line.

My advice after all the days screwing around: Fresh install.

originally posted by: verschickter
a reply to: azureblue

Simply: root folder is the highest folder you can get to.
regardless if its c: d: or z: or h:, everyone has its root folder.

If you think of unix systems you could say "Workspace/Mycomputer" could be considered some kind of root folder because: Unix handles partitions like folders and you can mount them everywhere (on any folder you´d like).

It´s what microsoft calls now space contingency. You can have a folder on a partition A and it´s getting full, so you can mount another drive/partition B(empty or not) into this folder on partition A and you have that space from B aviable in that folder on A.

thanks but there is still 30 gigs in the C drive, although I did have to expand it a couple of weeks ago so perhaps it was put there then. That would explain its presence but how do I get rid of it?

If I were to get everything out of the partition and format it would that delete not just the problem but my C drive as well??

originally posted by: verschickter
a reply to: secret titan
Or any other code that runs on the machine that wants the folder to be there...
In case of windows, it could be Azureblue set his TMP folders or such to the path of that undeleteable folder. I asked him via PM but he did not answered this line.

My advice after all the days screwing around: Fresh install.

Thanks for Pm ing me but I dont know how to receive it?

No I didnt set the TMP folders or such to the path of that undeleteable folder.

Im happy to accept that windows put it there because it ran out of space in the C drive when I was trying to to a repair install and I had'nt deleted the roll back folders from the previous attempt to do a repair install so it dumped something in the H drive data folder.

As above, How do do I get rid of it and why would it create lots of subfolders which I have noticed seem to increase in number each time I try to delete it??

thanks for the help to.

a reply to: azureblue
Now we have a better insight.
You were running Win7
You did a repair twice and the second time it dumped the files into H: because C: was full.
Now you can´t delete the files and they seem to increase everytime you try to delete them.

Additionally you get lockups because you run several anti "everythings" on your computer.

MY ADVICE:
next time you dump everything you know into your OP!
We had to pull so much out of your nose and finally we get a clearer picture of the situ.

What I would do
Backup private data (C: H: whatever), do not forget bookmarks/project files that may be saved in c: etc
Boot from Win7 DVD and format C: and H:.
Install fresh copy of Win7 etc.
Refrain from using more than one AntiVir, AntiSpy etc. in future.


HOW TO READ PMs
-> Click on the speech bubble on the top right corner of the navigation bar.
-> Under the title "private messages" click on the arrow that points downwards.
I can see you opened the u2u somehow so you were there at a moment.

I send you my emailadress in that PM, you can send screenshots or your skype name to me.
I could teamview/remote help you but that´s your decision and I would go the fresh install route directly if you´re capable of it.

Ok - I stumbled on this thread accidentally, and just letting you know I had exactly this problem ( except C: not H: ) a couple months ago. I found the answer here , and when even robocopy failed, I resorted to brute-force recursive delete via script.
This succeeded . It basically chops the head off the infinite snake, and destroys that head, then chops the new head off, then destroys..etc

I think the problem is summarised as follows
- The folder contains a link to itself ( how that happened is a mystery but possibly during an intrrupted disk action.)
- The OS cant resolve the problem because the complete path+filename exceeds OS limit
The script I used is pasted below. Simply paste into a text editor, save as delete_dumb_folder.cmd, with your foldername instead of "C:/libraries" . Then right-click "run as administrator" (unless you have admin rights already)
I think I first used cmd prompt to do a
"move C:/My/Dir/tree/AnnoyingFolder C:/AnnoyingFolder "
to simplify script.
Hope it works!
DZ
EDit: I gave up trying to display a backslash, so anywhere you see a ' / ' replace with backslash ( except rmdir options!)
Ed2: I just re-read your post, and relized -since you have 4 copies of each recursion- that you may have to add some lines to script like
REN C:/folder4copy1 c:/temp1
REN C:/folder4copy2 c:/temp2
..etc to temp4
then move like
MOVE C:/temp1/* c:/
MOVE C:/temp2..etc
-----------------------
echo "Let me delete that annoying recursing folder for you!"
echo "Press any key to continue..."
echo "Too late. Lets do this thang!"
echo off
:LoopStart
REN C:/libraries c:/dumb
MOVE C:/dumb/libraries "C:/"
REM the /S and /Q below should STAY as /S /Q
RMDIR /S /Q C:/dumb
GOTO LoopStart
:LoopEnd

originally posted by: verschickter
a reply to: azureblue
Now we have a better insight.
You were running Win7
You did a repair twice and the second time it dumped the files into H: because C: was full.
Now you can´t delete the files and they seem to increase everytime you try to delete them.

Additionally you get lockups because you run several anti "everythings" on your computer.

MY ADVICE:
next time you dump everything you know into your OP!
We had to pull so much out of your nose and finally we get a clearer picture of the situ.

What I would do
Backup private data (C: H: whatever), do not forget bookmarks/project files that may be saved in c: etc
Boot from Win7 DVD and format C: and H:.
Install fresh copy of Win7 etc.
Refrain from using more than one AntiVir, AntiSpy etc. in future.


HOW TO READ PMs
-> Click on the speech bubble on the top right corner of the navigation bar.
-> Under the title "private messages" click on the arrow that points downwards.
I can see you opened the u2u somehow so you were there at a moment.

I send you my emailadress in that PM, you can send screenshots or your skype name to me.
I could teamview/remote help you but that´s your decision and I would go the fresh install route directly if you´re capable of it.

My apologies for not providing better information. Next time Ill precede my posts with a facts paragraph, not that I want a reason to post here again. It seems that I now know what the problem is and how to delete it. One of my problems has been that I cannot do a repair install because right at the end it either gets a BSOD and rolls it all back.

It certainly seems to be recursive because I had Malware bytes scan the particular folder all night and it found 80 000 objects, whatever they are.

I may yet sill do a clean install just to see what happens but I'll leave that until the end of trying to delete this damn folder.

It also seems that I now know how the PM system works.

Thanks for your help and hopefully I wont have to come back
cheers

a reply to: Azureblue

Have you tried the batch script DrZippy provided?

People it´s not worth your time.
He said he would be online at 9am(09:00) West Australian Time.
This means 3AM in the morning for me.
Since I would be online until around 2AM anyway, I thought,
well that poor guy, I spend one more hour doing some code work, plus the time to fix his mess.

No he was not online. I waited until 03:25.

Thank you Azureblue for my wasted time. Really THAT made my day. Bravo.
From the cmd shot you sent me, I was positive that I have the solution, however:
Consider my offer to help you nullified.