deleting the windows directory....

[BlackRider]

Ok, I have a secondary HD in my computer... I want most of what's on it. However, it used to be the primary HD of my old computer... so it still has the windows directory taking up more than a gig. In the good old days of windows you could simply delete it... now you need permissions. So, I go and change all the permissions and everything seems like it should be fine. Then I get some 2000+ messages of "Access Denied"! So I check, and sure enough the permissions didn't change on a whole bunch of files. I go to the security tab and give myself full permissions, click OK... and "Access Denied"!

How can I delete this whole directory w/o having to format the drive? (Running Vista 64)


.... Maybe I could slap in a 3rd HD & do a linux install.......

[XMEN Gambit]

If you just want to mess with your filesystem in Linux, you can use a bootable live CD. Runs the OS off the CD and doesn't touch your drive unless you tell it to.

Did you do an upgrade or a clean install of Vista? I don't know much about Vista, but in older versions of windows if you did an upgrade there would sometimes be files left over in the old system directories that it used/locked.

Or, it's possible that Vista just won't let you delete files if the "system" flag is set on them. Find a file you can't delete, and get its properties. Assuming you're admin, there should be a way to see/set the "hidden" and "system" file flags, so try clearing them and then delete the file.

[Spinning Hat]

BR, you may want to move the stuff you want to save onto another drive then format the thing.. That will save you all kinds of heartaches in the long run I think..