Delete directory name that contains special characters

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mr Bubba
  • Start date Start date
M

Mr Bubba

I have an empty directory that contains special/unreadable characters in its
name. It has been impossible so far to find a way to delete it, and this
oddball directory name is causing my backup software to fail when I do a full
system backup. Worse yet, this particular directory name resides in the
following Windows XP system directory structure:

C:/Documents and Settings/All Users/Start Menu/Programs

I've tried every variation of rm, rmdir, dir /x, and cut/delete from Windows
Explorer, etc. I even tried completely reloading Windows XP from my original
OS/Drivers CDs. I have a Gateway PC and it appears that this malformed
directory may be part of a Phone Tools application installation that was part
of my original Gateway OS/Drivers CD package. Maybe it's a virus that was on
the orginal CDs. I'm not sure if that's the case, and even if so, I can't
find a way to prevent it from loading when I reload Windows XP.

Any suggestions on how to get rid of this crazy directory from a Windows
system directory?

Brian
 
Mr Bubba said:
I have an empty directory that contains special/unreadable characters in
its
name. It has been impossible so far to find a way to delete it, and this
oddball directory name is causing my backup software to fail when I do a
full
system backup. Worse yet, this particular directory name resides in the
following Windows XP system directory structure:

C:/Documents and Settings/All Users/Start Menu/Programs

I've tried every variation of rm, rmdir, dir /x, and cut/delete from
Windows
Explorer, etc. I even tried completely reloading Windows XP from my
original
OS/Drivers CDs. I have a Gateway PC and it appears that this malformed
directory may be part of a Phone Tools application installation that was
part
of my original Gateway OS/Drivers CD package. Maybe it's a virus that was
on
the orginal CDs. I'm not sure if that's the case, and even if so, I can't
find a way to prevent it from loading when I reload Windows XP.

Any suggestions on how to get rid of this crazy directory from a Windows
system directory?

Brian
Click to expand...
Try to rename it to a valid directory name.
Select the Programs directory so that the problem directory is
in the right pane of Windows Explorer. Click on the directory to
highlight it. Wait 5 seconds and click on the directory name again.
Press the delete key.
Type XXX
Hit the enter key.
If the rename worked, you can now delete the directory.
If it didn't work, open a command prompt window and change
to the programs directory.
Do a remove directory specifying the directory name bracketed in
double quotes. Every place that there is a special character
in the name, use a question mark in place of the special
character. (? is the ambiguous single character, * is the
ambiguous string character).
 
John,

Thank you for your speedy reply!

Renaming the directory is not possible. The following error messages are
returned when trying to do so:

* Cannot rename file: Cannot read from source file or disk

I get the same message when trying to delete this directory via Windows
Explorer too except replace "rename" above with "delete."

I've tried the DOS command approach too with every conceivable wildcard
combination.

The following error message is always returned:

* The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect.

Here are a couple of other interesting points about this directory:

When viewing this directory's info using Properties from Windows Explorer,
the file name looks like this: P^ONE^~1 where the carrot symbols are
actually squares, (but I can't quickly figure out how to put a square in this
response!). The same directory name format is displayed in the list when
selecting Start followed by All Programs.

If I run a dir /x from DOS, I notice the following:

* The short file name (8 character format) is blank, and
* The long file name is ONE+~1 where the + actually is the paragraph
symbol (backwards P with two vertical lines)

I don't know how to interpret these wacky results. It's odd that from DOS,
the file name does not start with P. In fact, output from dir list
files/directories in alphabetical order and it's interpreting this file as
starting with the letter O.

As mentioned above, within DOS I have tried all of these variations (and
more):

* rmdir "P?ONE?~1"
* rmdir "P*ONE*~1"
* rmdir *P*ONE*"
* etc. etc.

I've also tried "chkdsk" with various flags, and a utility called
MoveOnBoot, and about 42 other shareware tools, in addition various Safe Mode
options, and so on.

At this point, I'm thinking about taking a scratch awl to the sector of my
disk where this directory resides!

Thanks again for trying to help! I'm certainly open to other suggestions too.

Brian
 
Mr Bubba said:
John,

Thank you for your speedy reply!

Renaming the directory is not possible. The following error messages are
returned when trying to do so:

* Cannot rename file: Cannot read from source file or disk

I get the same message when trying to delete this directory via Windows
Explorer too except replace "rename" above with "delete."

I've tried the DOS command approach too with every conceivable wildcard
combination.

The following error message is always returned:

* The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect.

Here are a couple of other interesting points about this directory:

When viewing this directory's info using Properties from Windows Explorer,
the file name looks like this: P^ONE^~1 where the carrot symbols are
actually squares, (but I can't quickly figure out how to put a square in
this
response!). The same directory name format is displayed in the list when
selecting Start followed by All Programs.

If I run a dir /x from DOS, I notice the following:

* The short file name (8 character format) is blank, and
* The long file name is ONE+~1 where the + actually is the paragraph
symbol (backwards P with two vertical lines)

I don't know how to interpret these wacky results. It's odd that from
DOS,
the file name does not start with P. In fact, output from dir list
files/directories in alphabetical order and it's interpreting this file as
starting with the letter O.

As mentioned above, within DOS I have tried all of these variations (and
more):

* rmdir "P?ONE?~1"
* rmdir "P*ONE*~1"
* rmdir *P*ONE*"
* etc. etc.

I've also tried "chkdsk" with various flags, and a utility called
MoveOnBoot, and about 42 other shareware tools, in addition various Safe
Mode
options, and so on.

At this point, I'm thinking about taking a scratch awl to the sector of my
disk where this directory resides!

Thanks again for trying to help! I'm certainly open to other suggestions
too.

Brian
Click to expand...
My next step would be to run a binary disk editor, find the sector that
contains the bad directory name and change all of the special characters
to standard alphanumeric characters. In the DOS days, Norton had an
editor that would have made this easy. Unfortunately it doesn't
understand the NTFS file format or long file names.
There is a program in the Microsoft Support Tools called
dskprobe that allows individual sector editing. It's very
dangerous to use because if you modify the wrong sector
you can end up with a reinstall job on your hands.
If you are going to try it, please do a good backup before
you start.
 
John,

Thank you for your help! I'll check out the tool that you referred to ...
and be exceedingly careful.

Brian
 
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