How do I delete big folders with ease?

[relequestual]

I backed up my parents laptop about a month ago. didnt have the time to zip before backing up as it was way slow, so i copied the C drive across and then zipped it on mine. Now the problem is, i cant seem to delete the unziped backup. it keeps failing or not even starting.

Is there a bit of software out there that can delete a big folder with loads of files in it without any hassle?

cheers

Rel

[mwb1100]

You can't get much quicker and easier than this (be careful - you can do a lot of damage) - from the command line : 

Code

rd /s <folder name>

If you're adventurous you can add the "/q" option and it'll wipe the folder without asking for confirmation.

[nosh]

Maybe it's an access (attributes) problem?

[Curt]

Shift+Delete

[f0dder]

If you have a huge file tree to delete, going to cmd.exe can definitely be a lot faster than deleting from explorer.

You say you copied the entire C drive? Then you might also have some permission problems, depending on the way you did the copying.

[nite_monkey]

if it is permission problems, then would running an explorer window under the SYSTEM account fix that problem?

If so, sysrun will let you do that.
just run sysrun, and open either a command prompt and use

You can't get much quicker and easier than this (be careful - you can do a lot of damage) - from the command line : 

Code

rd /s <folder name>

If you're adventurous you can add the "/q" option and it'll wipe the folder without asking for confirmation.

that method, or run sysrun and open an explorer window and use shift delete on it.

[relequestual]

Thanks everyone for helping me through this one.
Shift Delete worked, but the problem was, it would keep hitting access denied permission errors, and stop the delete.
i will give sysrun a try tonight and let you know how it goes

What i was really looking for was if someone had created a small app that takes over the windows delete and processes skipping errors and ending with a report. Like teracopy does for copying, but for deleting.

Thanks again donation coder members!

[PhilB66]

Did you try to delete in safe mode? Also, Eraser or Sysinternals sdelete may be of help.

[Carol Haynes]

If there are permission issues you will need to take ownership of the files/folders first (they don't necessarily all give full access to System).

Once you have taken ownership use right click Properties to set the top folder attributes to remove any read only attributes recursively to all the files and folders below that folder.

Then Shift Delete should work very quickly.

The only difficult bit is taking ownership. To do that you need to disable "Simple File Sharing" in the Folder Options so that you can see who owns files etc. in Explorer on right click.

[nite_monkey]

Thanks everyone for helping me through this one.
Shift Delete worked, but the problem was, it would keep hitting access denied permission errors, and stop the delete.
i will give sysrun a try tonight and let you know how it goes

What i was really looking for was if someone had created a small app that takes over the windows delete and processes skipping errors and ending with a report. Like teracopy does for copying, but for deleting.

Thanks again donation coder members!

well if you want it to skip errors, then you could try Unstoppable Copier and just set the target as the recycle bin or something like that, if that is possible, I haven't ever used Unstoppable Copier, I only heard about it from Darren over at hak5.org

[Stoic Joker]

NTFS file prrmissions are inherated by the targets permissions when moving files between partition. They are only copied if moving files within the same partition...So that's not the issue.

However if there is a file name legnth issue (very common with this type of "backup") then you will get tons of false Permissions errors due to the shell's inability to handle the length of the file names.

f0dder had most of the right answer, but didn't give all of the necessary syntax. I used this alot for clean ups back when hijacking FTP servers with hidden directories was popular.

rmdir  /q /s \.\\C:\[fullpath-to-target]

/q must be used or the delete will crash when it tries to display the "error"

the \.\\  fires from namespace root and guarentees no forgiveness.

rmdir & rd both work/will do the same thing, I just picked rmdir out of habbit.

Holding the Shift key will still get the shell involved, will try to echo the offending file name to the progress dialog, and will crash with false permissions error.