Unable to delete, rename or move a video file

[genuineyttri]

I've got 2 video files (avi and mpeg) which I cannot delete. I've booted in safe mode and still no go. They are not large enough (553 kb & 28.9 kb) to be anything complete. I am unable to rename or move them to other folders. Windows seems to do nothing. If I go to move them to another file it shows visually moving them but nothing happens when I click move here. When I rename, nothing happens. I am unable to just click it to let me rename either. I've run into pics and videos before that wouldn't delete, but booting to the safe mode always worked before. When I hit check properties it says properties are not available for this item. The files are in a second tier sub-folder in My Documents. Can someone help me?

Thanks

J

 

[bcastner]

1. Right-click and Cut the files. Right-click on the Recycle Bin and paste.

-or-

2. Bring up Task Manager. End the process explorer.exe. File, New Task, Del driveath:filename.avi After deleting the files, File, New Task, explorer.exe

 

[Marcs41]

BTW, you are not running Kazaa or anything like that on autostart or so? It will retry the downloads and thus lock the files.

Marc
_{If 'something' 'somewhere' gives 'some' error, expect random guesses or no replies at all. Please specify details.
Free Tip: The F1 Key does NOT destroy your PC!}

 

[genuineyttri]

Bcaster,

I tried your first solution; didn't work. The second one I tried but both filenames are too long for the Create Task Window in Task Manager to accomodate (guess what kind they are? ha ha). It also told me it couldn't find DEL or one of its, et al. Am I missing something? Should there be a space between 'Del' and the beginning of the drive name? Should there be a colon between the path and file name? Sorry to be such a putz.

Marcs41,

I have no peer to peer on autostart. I've just recently removed Kazaa from my system. I only have BearShare, but it's not on autostart.


Thanks again for any help. J

 

[Marcs41]

that would be
Del C:\directory\filename.avi

Marc
_{If 'something' 'somewhere' gives 'some' error, expect random guesses or no replies at all. Please specify details.
Free Tip: The F1 Key does NOT destroy your PC!}

 

[genuineyttri]

Hi,

Marcs41,

Thank you, but I still can't get the whole string into the Create Task Window box. It evidentley reaches the limit on how much you can type in on that line?

J

 

[CluelessJon]

Oh well the solutions above were the easiest ones, I will fill the next step for you guys.

http://www.bootdisk.com

Make a boot disk ... stick that in boot the machine up off this and manually delete the file.

cd [folder]

del [file]



Regards

Jonno BrainDump Specialist
MCSE(NT) MCSA(2k) CCNA

 

[TinCanMan]

I've encountered problems in the past attempting to delete certain files. Not necessarily .avi's but other types. Usually happens when Windows believes some process has the file "open" although attempts to identify that process have failed. I've used 3 methodes to delete them. I haven't identified a consistantly successful method, though.

1. Drag n Drop the file to the recycle bin.
2. Restart the system then drag it to recycle.
3. Exit to the command prompt, check the attributes, remove &quot;read only&quot; bit and use the delete command <delete filespec>

 

[bcastner]

Put a blank Notepad .txt file into the same folder as the AVI. Select the text file, then press Ctrl and select the movie file also. Delete both files.

 

[noobtechie]

Rename the file type (rename the extension)
Go to Tools\folder options\view\uncheck hide file extensions

Go to that file and you should see an .avi or .mpeg extension at the end. Go ahead and rename the extension to .old or whatever you like. Once, that's done try deleting it, make sure you change the extension back to hide in the folver\view options.

Hope this helps

 

[genuineyttri]

Hey,

You folks are great. I tried everything except making a boot disk; that scared me as I've never done it. None of the others worked. I happened on the solution while I was renaming files, only I wasn't using Explorer. I wanted to view thumbnails to see what duplicate pics I had so I was using Irfanview. It struck me, maybe this little freebee program would let me rename those vid files. And it did. One of them didn't even have an extension, so I just named them 1 & 2 and gave them the file extensions that Explorer had said they were. Then I deleted them. What a relief, and a trick I'll remember for future reference.

Thanks again,

J