Can't delete a file? (Vista)

mcdermott

So I've got this video file that for whatever reason I cannot delete. It was created with Nero Recode, I watched it with VLC, wanted to tweak some settings, so went to delete it...it just hangs. Within the GUI (Vista) it just hangs at "Calculating time remaining..." Tried from the command line (both as user and admin) and no joy (no error, just hangs). Same from a safe mode command line.

My logical next step is downloading a Linux live CD, and trying to delete it from there (I'm doing that now). Any other ideas? More importantly, any idea what would cause such a thing in the first place?

Impersonator

Uhm, is it by chance in any folder? Try refreshing it. Then go to your recycle bin.

If it still isn't gone just restart your computer and try again ;-)

mcdermott

It's in my Videos folder. And yeah, refresh isn't going to do anything. Like I said, I've been trying to straight delete (Shift-Delete, no recycle) but moving to recycle bin doesn't do anything either. Also, after I couldn't delete it I tried just running Nero Recode again and re-encoding over it...as soon as the program went to write to the file (after the first encoding pass) it just hung...no error out for permissions, no nothing...just hung there.

And yeah, I've already tried a reboot (two now, actually), as well as logging in as admin.

Tav

http://www.killbox.net/

Killbox is a nifty tool for hard deleting programs. It does an awesome job of eradicating them off your HDD, and if it doesn't work at first then just check the box for "Delete on restart".

I've had at least 6 or so files that I've not been able to delete normally that Killbox has managed to delete.

mcdermott

Hmmm....another boot into safe mode and I was able to delete it through the GUI (I had to boot back into Windows because apparently it didn't unmount the disk properly, so ubuntu didn't want to mount it).

Oh well, file's dead now. Also, that killbox thing looks pretty spiffy, well worth making the thread.

Ohtsam

I think this is an issue with vlc in this case though because I've had this happen to me quite often with videos I've watched with it

LittleBoots

mcdermott wrote: »

Hmmm....another boot into safe mode and I was able to delete it through the GUI (I had to boot back into Windows because apparently it didn't unmount the disk properly, so ubuntu didn't want to mount it).

Oh well, file's dead now. Also, that killbox thing looks pretty spiffy, well worth making the thread.

For future reference you can force mount a windows partition in linux even if it wasn't umounted by windows properly. I don't remember the command off hand (quick google search should find it). I had to do it once to get rid of some particularly nasty spyware that I was unable to remove in windows even in safe mode.

mcdermott

Ohtsam wrote: »

I think this is an issue with vlc in this case though because I've had this happen to me quite often with videos I've watched with it

Nope...seems like it's an issue with Nero Recode, because another movie I just made with it (and didn't watch with VLC) is doing the same. Actually, both of them are. Annoying.

Weird, too, both because it's no longer running and because even if it were it should give me some sort of "access denied" message rather than just sitting there and hanging.

mcdermott

Mystery solved...sorta.

Apparently it was caused by the AppLauncher gadget in my sidebar. I had a link to that folder in there (for easy access) but apparently it didn't like me changing files in it (creating files was fine, obviously).

Weird.

zanetheinsane

I always recommend Unlocker as an essential Windows program. It's free, and has an excellent interface. You just right click and select "Unlocker" and it shows you all programs that have hooked the file, with options to unhook them.