Can't delete corrupt file
in [Help and Support]
|
From: Galen on 2 Mar 2005 14:41 In news:9FBB18EA-78C1-4B71-86D6-1DB7C22ADF0C(a)microsoft.com, racerl1 <racerl1(a)discussions.microsoft.com> had this to say: > so much of your effort, but I truly do > appreciate your help. Thank you. No, no, no... Don't be sorry. The more difficult the problem the more likely I am to enjoy it. Above and beyond this you've been very decent at trying the individual choices and trying to work with us and giving all of the information that you have available to you. I've no complaints other than the fact that we haven't managed to figure this out yet. I'm going to do two things. The first is suggest that you try to enable NTFS support for DOS and use a standard boot disk. Right now, as I'm writting this, I'm looking for a way to accomplish this that's easy. The second thing that I'm going to do is take this thread and give it a good summary and post it to another private list that I'm a member of and see if there's any MVPs who can make heads or tails of it. We've tried just about everything that I can think of short of formatting and to be frank that's not an options for something so simple as a corrupt file. Then again we should have been able to delete this file already and the fact that we can't do so is really bothersome to me and I can only imagine how upsetting it would be to you. I'd hate to think that you just ended up leaving it there. Let me see... You've defragged, you've checked the disk for errors, you've tried to delete it from recovery console, you've gone ahead and made sure the file wasn't hidden nor protected in any other way, you've used third party tools (including trying to move it on boot) to delete it, and more but it's still not deleting. Did I miss anything else? Let's see... Above and beyond that you've tried to do all of the above in safe mode. Which, of course, means that you didn't have anything like virus protection stopping you from doing this. You're not getting an error about ownership and have taken ownership of the file. You've run a complete chkdsk with the appropriate switches. Okay, so what haven't you done? Well the main thing that you haven't done at this point would be to use a plain old startup disk and go in that way. There's a couple of choices for this but we're going to try to find the safest way. Have you downloaded the startup disks from Microsoft? There's 6 of them and there's a link at the bootdisk.com site for them or there's some links in an earlier post. You can try those. I think, I've never used them, they have the ability to function like DOS disks with NTFS support. Don't, of course, do the format options... But you could use them and navigate to the correct directory and delete them. You've tried through the recovery console so this is about all that I've left to try. Here's some software that you'd have to pay for that would allow you to read/write (and delete) files on an NTFS formatted drive with MS-DOS. There seems to be a trial available which you could use perhaps? http://www.purenetworking.net/Products/NTFSProfessional/NTFSProfessional.htm I don't know anything about it, I'll go so far as to download it and make a copy of it and try it if you need that much help but they probably have good help files. I'm also not sure if the trial version is a full version or if it's crippled in some way. There may be other utilities that will do the same thing but I haven't found a free one yet. I'll keep looking, in fact I'll devote the day to it as I've nothing better to do and there's nothing else that you haven't tried already. Winternals has a good reputation and they have another version here: http://www.winternals.com/products/repairandrecovery/index.asp?pid=ap#ntfsdosprofessional I don't know about a trial for it, I think you'd have to request an evaluation CD which, if I recall, is fully functional but time locked. The time lock isn't important as you'd only need it for a little while and the application has a great reputation. Note that the first link that is up there is one that I just went to, entered my email address and name, and got a 404 page but that may be a temporary problem at their end or even one due to the proxy that I'm using at this point. There are, of course, other options available and these two companies aren't the only ones who make this sort of software. Yet another option would be BartPE which uses your Windows XP disk to make a CD that works like a bootable operating system from CD. You can read more about it here: http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ Hopefully one of these solutions is what you're looking for. I will post this to a private email list full of MVPs who will, hopefully, offer any additional thoughts and ideas. Galen
From: Galen on 2 Mar 2005 17:51 In news:uYDqe$1HFHA.2784(a)TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl, Galen <galennews(a)gmail.com> had this to say: Okay... From Robear: Has he tried uninstalling Turbo Tax and then trying the delete? That makes a good deal of sense and is worth trying out to see if it will enable you to delete the file. And: HijackThis (HT) http://forum.aumha.org/downloads/hijackthis.exe has a tool to delete a file on reboot. Might be worth a try. HT: Config > Misc Tools > Delete a file on reboot. Both are worth a shot. From R. C. White: Reworded by me. Boot to safe mode and, using the CMD prompt again, try to delete it with the remove directory command like you had before but try it in safe mode if you didn't try it in safe mode before. It's worth trying and might be the key you need. Let's see... That's all that I've had posted so far but there's likely to be more added as more of the MVPs see it and read this thread. They're from across the globe so there's no telling what time zone they're in and when they'll see the email. Please, when you do get this deleted, let me/us know what it was that you did to get rid of it. You're not the only one to post a problem after using Turbo Tax software. I don't usually recommend specific software or sites by name and this is heading into an off topic type of conversation when I post this but, in the past, I've used a website for my taxes and have found that they got all of the deductions right and that they were pretty well organized. The fee is less than buying software and any forms can be printed out from right there on the server. It's also, of course, a secure site. I'm not recommending any particular site for you but I've had great luck with using web-based tax filing solutions in the past. You can, of course, use any site you'd like but it means that you won't have to install additional software. At first I had a link in there but I've gone back and edited it out. I try to avoid recommending specific solutions/sites for this type of thing, mostly because should you have a bad experience at a site that I'd recommended I'd not want to be held accountable in your eyes. Once again, don't worry about taking too much of anyone's time. Galen -- "My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation." -- Sherlock Holmes
From: Galen on 2 Mar 2005 22:16 In news:uuhvhp3HFHA.2784(a)TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl, Galen <galennews(a)gmail.com> had this to say: > In news:uYDqe$1HFHA.2784(a)TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl, > Galen <galennews(a)gmail.com> had this to say: > > Okay... From Robear: "Oops! Forgot the most important part: After selecting the file to be deleted, leave HijackThis open while rebooting. (Sorry)" LOL That's about all the additional ideas we've had crop up in there. Let us know if it's worked or not so that should we face this again we'll be able to solve it more rapidly. Galen -- "My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation." -- Sherlock Holmes
From: R. C. White on 3 Mar 2005 17:12 Hi, Racer1. I'm getting into this thread late. You've already tried some of the things I've suggested to Galen, but let's back up a bit and be sure we're on the same page. (Just for the record, you ARE an administrator of this computer, right? And logged on as an administrator? A short basic description of your computer might assure us that we do, in fact, have a correct mental picture of your situation: make and model, how much RAM, number and type of HDs and how they are partitioned and formatted, whether the Pro or Home edition of WinXP and whether SP2 is installed. I don't see any of that information in the thread so far. Sometimes we are very deep into a thread before we learn that some of our basic assumptions were wrong and we've been headed down a blind alley all along. And trying to lead the user down that wrong path. But he doesn't see what we think he sees and both he and we just get more lost. So let's make sure we know where we are starting from.) > After loading Turbo Tax a couple of weeks ago, I started getting an error I doubt TurboTax had anything to do with your problem. > I started getting an error > when trying to open Outlook 2003. It stated that a file ID_011.dpc was > corrupt. I tried to reinstall over Outlook and even tried to uninstall > Outlook, but every time it came to that one file, everything would stop. > Finally, I deleted everything except the file, and renamed the folder that > it > was in. This allowed me to reinstall Outlook with no problem. ID-011.DPC is a valid file from Microsoft, a part of Office 2003. It should be only 575 bytes and be dated 07/28/2003. It should be in \Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\1033. It should not have any attributes set; that is, it should NOT be Hidden, System or Read-only. It should not have any readable text in it; the DOS command "type id_011.dpc" should produce nothing but apparent gibberish on your screen with, perhaps, a few audible beeps. If you open it in Notepad, you should similarly see only "garbage". This does not mean the file is corrupt; it just means that it is in binary code, not a human language. You say you've now reinstalled Outlook - into another folder, no doubt. Can you copy the new ID_011.dpc from that new Office11\1033 folder over the old "corrupted" copy? Using either Explorer or "DOS"? In another message you said, "I have been trying to work on this all day, but unfortunately, I don't know enough to make this work. I was unable to find a download for a boot disk with NTFS support. I tried numerous Win 98 boot disks, and none of them let me navigate away from the a: drive. (invalid drive). The only mention of NTFS was for a download that allowed me to view and copy NTFS files. There was no option to delete or get to a DOS prompt." You should not need a boot diskette or a Win98 disk. You haven't said, but I assume you are using NTFS. WinXP is happy with either FAT or NTFS, but neither MS-DOS nor Win9x/ME can read, write, boot from or even SEE an NTFS volume. There are third-party programs that allow MS-DOS to work with NTFS, but you should not need any of those. WinXP has a Command Prompt, which we often refer to as the "DOS" window, but with "DOS" in quotes to remind us that it is only an emulation, not true MS-DOS. When in this "DOS" window, we can use DOS-like commands to work with both FAT and NTFS volumes. Maybe that's why many users say that the WinXP Command Prompt is "a better DOS than DOS". There are several ways to get to this "DOS" window; one is to click Start | Run and enter: cmd.exe You've tried a lot of things but I'd like to go through my suggestion once more, step by step. That's the rd command in a "DOS" window. I know you've tried this, but it's not clear exactly HOW you tried it. Boot into WinXP and open a "DOS" window. You said you've isolated your problem file in a folder by itself, but you haven't told us the name or location of that folder, so I'll use C:\OldOffice\id_011.dpc as an example. From any prompt in the "DOS" window, type: rd C:\OldOffice /s /q That is the rd (or rmdir, for Remove Directory) command to remove the OldOffice folder from C:\, the Root directory of Drive C:. The /s switch says to remove the entire OldOffice folder, including all files and subfolders within it. The /q switch says to go ahead, without asking for confirmation. (In the "DOS" window, type any command followed by "/?" to see a mini-Help file showing the switches and parameters available with that command; for example: rd /?) That's enough for now. When you've tried that rd command, post back and tell us exactly what you did, step by step, and exactly what results you saw. Please include the entire path name of your problem file. If there was an error message, please quote it verbatim. RC -- R. C. White, CPA San Marcos, TX rc(a)corridor.net Microsoft Windows MVP "racerl1" <racerl1(a)discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:2AA12109-64C5-466E-A598-573D59CA3255(a)microsoft.com... > After loading Turbo Tax a couple of weeks ago, I started getting an error > when trying to open Outlook 2003. It stated that a file ID_011.dpc was > corrupt. I tried to reinstall over Outlook and even tried to uninstall > Outlook, but every time it came to that one file, everything would stop. > Finally, I deleted everything except the file, and renamed the folder that > it > was in. This allowed me to reinstall Outlook with no problem. > > The problem I have now is that I cannot delete this corrupt file that is > in > a folder by itself. Everytime I start my computer, check disk runs and > finds > no problems. Yet, when I try to delete, rename, or restore over the > corrupt > file, it tells me I cannot delete the file because it is corrupted and > unreadable. How can I get rid of this unnecessary file?
From: racerl1 on 4 Mar 2005 10:17
> > Okay, so what haven't you done? Well the main thing that you haven't done at > this point would be to use a plain old startup disk and go in that way. > There's a couple of choices for this but we're going to try to find the > safest way. Have you downloaded the startup disks from Microsoft? There's 6 > of them and there's a link at the bootdisk.com site for them or there's some > links in an earlier post. You can try those. I think, I've never used them, > they have the ability to function like DOS disks with NTFS support. Don't, > of course, do the format options... But you could use them and navigate to > the correct directory and delete them. You've tried through the recovery > console so this is about all that I've left to try. When I did this, I ended up at the screen where you choose to reinstall or enter the repair console. This was the same as using the XP disk. > > Here's some software that you'd have to pay for that would allow you to > read/write (and delete) files on an NTFS formatted drive with MS-DOS. There > seems to be a trial available which you could use perhaps? > I also received the 404 page. > > I don't know about a trial for it, I think you'd have to request an > evaluation CD which, if I recall, is fully functional but time locked. The > time lock isn't important as you'd only need it for a little while and the > application has a great reputation. I requested a trial CD. I guess it will be here in a few weeks. > Yet another option would be BartPE which uses your Windows XP disk to make a > CD that works like a bootable operating system from CD. You can read more > about it here: I am still working on this and learning about the product. Thanks. Robin |