StarDestroyer.Net BBS

The long and short of it is I've got a folder I can't access, and I need to. Any time I try to delete, move, open or do anything to it I get the error message that it's not accessible and access is denied.

Some may remember a while back I tried a reformat to try and correct a problem I was having, turns out the problem was nothing to do with my computer, but anyway, this folder I can't access is a profile folder from before the reformat, so it's pretty safe to say that it cocked up, especially since after I did the reformat something I couldn't account for was still taking up over half my HDD space, and I think it has got to be this profile folder I can't access, because there is no where else on the drive taking up anywhere near the amount of space I'm missing, even using Treesize it can only find about 40GB being used.

I haven't really looked too much into trying to fix this until now, because I didn't need to, I still had enough space on my HDD provided I used my external HDD for music, videos, etc. But at the moment I've got 14GB left, and it's not going to last much longer, and if I can't find and free up this nearly 100GB I'm going to have to replace the HDD which I really can't afford right now, so any help will be much appreciated.

The most obvious (possibly quickest) solution that comes to mind is get a Live Linux distro and delete or move the folders from within the Linux OS. That way any conflicts with Windows should be a non-issue. Make sure you defrag and scandisk the hard drive beforehand though, that could be another problem.

Use an administrator account to adjust the permissions.

How would I do that? Because the account I'm using is an admin account and I can't see any way to do it.

Dorsk 81 wrote:How would I do that? Because the account I'm using is an admin account and I can't see any way to do it.

Turn on advanced sharing options (or turn off simple sharing and security, I forget which it's called) in your folder options.

Then, take over ownership of the folder and enable recursion.

I can't see anything like that in Folder Options. I've tried dragging it into the Shared Documents folder but can't, like I said, I just get the Access Denied message. I also tried going into Properties of the folder and ticking the Share this folder on the network box and all that, but up pops the Access Denied error again.

It's the last option under the view tab. Use simple sharing or something like.

Nope, not there. The last option I've got is "Show pop-up description for folder and desktop items".

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307874 try the instructions in there?

I know where it was telling me to look, but it just wasn't there, not a single item about sharing, simple or otherwise. I've got it now though, going through Safe Mode opened up some extra options in properties under the security tab and I was able to transfer ownership.

Thanks to everyone for the help.