Recommend deleter for files/directories with corrupted names?

[rjbull]

I have some files and directories/folders with badly corrupted names on my USB HD.  None of my three file managers can delete them.  Please can you recommend a tool that will?

Thanks...

[cranioscopical]

Can't do it from the command line, with wildcards?

[f0dder]

Have you ran a chkdsk on the volume?

[Curt]

I had a similar problem but removed the files with Unlocker and maybe a reboot.

[rjbull]

I briefly tried deleting from the command line, can't remember if I tried wildcards, and got a message about file name being too long.  But...  kudos to f0dder!    chkdsk did the job - eventually.  Basic "chkdsk" works, but as soon as I added a switch, "/f", it complained that I didn't have rights and it needed to be elevated.  I'm using Vista Home Premium from a user account with UAC On...  So I logged off, logged back on as administrator, tried again - only to find the same thing.    I can't remember exactly what I did then, but I copied chkdsk.exe to the root of the USB drive, fiddled about with its Properties to make it "Run as admin," and somewhere along the way it ran "chkdsk /f".  There's a thread similar to this elsewhere on DC, where Carol Haynes notes (from memory) that "chkdsk /x" would be more appropriate in these cases.  In fact my "chkdsk /f" instantly turned itself into "/x" because it said the drive had to be dismounted.  At last it ran, I accepted the defaults about changing to a file etc., and was able to delete the mess.  Windows didn't try very hard to make it easy, though. 

Along the way I learnt a few things.  I didn't know that USB devices have serial numbers, and can also have labels, and that SyncBack Pro can recognise either or both as a way of uniquely identifying a particular USB device, so you only run the right profile against it.  USB Safely Remove, which is on Bits du Jour again on Wednesday 9th June, can conveniently give USB devices permanent letters, i.e., as I understand it, a particular USB device is always recognised as "g:\" or whatever.  Presumably it too understands serial numbers.

I didn't try Unlocker because I thought that was mainly for deleting files that Windows thought were still in use, even where they weren't.  It's very useful for that situation, but this situation seemed different.

Thanks, folks! 

[f0dder]

Tip for running console apps admin: open the start menu, type "cmd" into the search bar. Hit ctrl+shift+enter, instead of just enter, to launch cmd.exe elevated. From then on, any apps you start from the console will run elevated. FARR can do the same, btw

Anyway, I guess you're using FAT filesystem on the USB drive, since it got that corrupted? If you mainly use the the drive on a single machine, consider converting to NTFS.

[rjbull]

Tip for running console apps admin: open the start menu, type "cmd" into the search bar. Hit ctrl+shift+enter, instead of just enter, to launch cmd.exe elevated. From then on, any apps you start from the console will run elevated. FARR can do the same, btw

Thanks!  That could be a really useful tip 

I only just realised how to make things run as Admin under Windows Explorer    Don't double-click the file, right-click it and choose from the context menu.  When you're in a near-panic it's easy to overlook the obvious.

Anyway, I guess you're using FAT filesystem on the USB drive, since it got that corrupted? If you mainly use the drive on a single machine, consider converting to NTFS.

I was going to say I use it on other machines as well.  Then I remembered it's my back-up HD that really only runs on my own machine, whereas I do occasionally use my USB sticks on others.  So I'll have to look into converting to NTFS next time I mount it.

Thanks again