cannot delete history in dos

[BuckeyeComputers]

Strange one here have a system that is getting the dreaded unable to write to c: error, harddrive failing?... i would think so i ran some harddisk checking software and the drive seems to be fine(microscope2000) so booted with an
WinME boot disk and tried to run scandisk (tried running in safemode but unable to complete) Once it gets to the directory scan it comes to an error in the C:\windows\history folder which it is unable to complete.. so first thought is to dump the history folder...
typed attrib history -s
to remove the system atribute
typed deltree history
it confirms
type rd history
target doesnt exist or directory not empty
doing a dir of windows directory does not show a history folder
went back to scandisk and still stuck at an error in the c:\windows\history folder????
went back to c:\windows
typed dir history
file not found????
type cd history
and now i am in the c:\windows\history dir...which the system states doesnt exist????

Anyone think of what is going wrong here?

 

[mjinks61]

My guess would be the folder has a hidden attribute, so it doesn't show up with a regular dir command of the windows directory.

Good luck, and Happy Computing

 

[Win98User]

Certainly sounds as if the drive is on the way out.

Assuming that you take regular backups, I would suggest that you try formating the drive and restoring the backup.

 

[Win98User]

mjinks61 - \windows\history isn't "a proper directory" it's a system file. Windows doen't like it when you start deleting system files.

 

[BuckeyeComputers]

Thanks for the replies..
do have an update that is really strange...
typed ren history historyold
typed cd history
got invalid directory
so much for a thought that it was a phantom...lol
tried scandisk again and this time it failed again but with the new directory name
c:\windows\historyo\history.ie5\histor~5
apparantly that section of drive is unreadable to dos but diag software has no problem reading it....
still trying will update if i find something other than a reformat for now(no permission from customer on that yet)

 

[Win98User]

hi buckeye - you would have realised by now that you can't have a file name of more than 8 characters, that is why you got ...\historyo\history.ie5\... and not historyold or it's dos equivalent histor~1

Regards.

 

[mjinks61]

Apparently this "History" was a directory, as renaming it to historyold used the first 8 characters as the new directory name. He wouldn't have been able to change directory to it with the CD command otherwise. As he stated, after renaming it, scandisk found an issue farther down the tree.

Good luck, and Happy Computing

 

[BuckeyeComputers]

yes i realize that after renaming it i used too many characters..but beside the point removing the history directory is not unheard of... have done it in the past several times to correct errors ex:
deltree cookies
deltree history
deltree tempo~1 (temporary internet files)
deltree temp
suppose to remove all traces of the directory and files(a good cleaning method for some problems of IE windows just recreates these on the next boot...
so to keep up to date here my next step is a safewrite to the harddrive(not sure how safe it is...lol) by having the program move the files write 0's then replace the files(good luck to me on this one)

 

[Win98User]

tsk tsk I didn't say it wasn't a directory - I was emphasising it was a special directory!

But perhaps you could try and copy a file into the \windows\history "directory" and see what result you get.

All the bet.

 

[BuckeyeComputers]

well i have managed to get down to 1 directory or file,
booted system back into windows and there was my old historyo directory...deleted it but was unable to empty recycle bin..restore it and went as far as i could thru the directory chain and deleted individually... but still cannot empty all files.. open recycle bin and it shows no files so went back to dos and tried scandisk again...99% thru directory scan it finds a problem now at c:\recycled\dc2....
unable to fix the problem because unable to write to root directory..
what i need to do is a surface scan on this drive but cannot get past that error... does anyone know of a way to force a surface scan by bypassing the earlier scan?(file allocation,directory,free space...)