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How to VIOLENTLY delete files from NTFS partitions?
Posted by dr_st I think I can now sum it up. When you want to reinstall Windows FROM SCRATCH, you have two options basically. First one is indeed format the partition, but as I explained, sometimes it's a thing you don't want to do, because you may have lots of valuable stuff on that partition with no means or no will to back it up. To have a clean install without formatting, you need to erase the exact directories that I mentioned in my first post. You cannot delete them properly while Windows is running. Like I said, it's not an issue of administrative rights, but of files being protected by the run-time module. Your batchfiles won't do the trick here, because all they do is call the systems delete commands, which will not work, because of the above mentioned protection. You will simply run into many files which will give you the famous "Access is denied" message. BTW, your comment on my suggested batchfile not having DEL or ERASE, look closer: RD /S in Win2K/XP = DELTREE in DOS/Win9x. That's why I said that your batchfiles are reinventing the wheel - there is a built-in deltree in 2K/XP. Not sure about NT, though, I don't think I ever used it. Your next suggestion, the recovery console, was the first thing I tried. As you guess, it didn't work. It's funny that the RC allows you to run format on a partition, but doesn't allow you to run RD over a selected directory (Access is denied). So, unless there are some more complicated ways to get the RC to allow you to RD a direcory, it is not an option here too. Hence, I was looking for a way to get a pure DOS environment with full access to any NTFS volumes. Since the NT OSes don't run over true DOS, they don't provide you with such tools. I couldn't find any 2K/XP bootdisk to allow me to do that either. That's when I ran into NTFSDOS Pro. The great thing about NTFSDOS Pro is that it makes any NTFS partitions look like regular FAT/FAT32 partitions to the OS, allowing you to use any OS commands on these files in Win9x environment. BTW, apparently it won't work with DOS 6, as I originally thought (I tried it with Win98SE bootdisk). You can find yourself in need to access the hard drive from pure DOS from various reasons. For example, just a few days ago I had a totally fatal WinXP crash (REGISTRY_ERROR 0x51). It wouldn't boot normally, it wouldn't boot in safe mode, it wouldn't boot to the recovery console, it wouldn't even boot ERD Commander 2003 (a full-featured Win-style recovery environment by Winternals, the same guys that made NTFSDOS). This situation is pretty rare, but if it happens - you absolutely cannot access anything on the hard disk except from pure DOS. What do you do if you have some crucial files there and you need them? If the partition is FAT32, you can use a regular Win9x bootdisk. If the partition is NTFS, you get the same result with Win9x bootdisk + NTFSDOS Pro. |