Recycle Bin

  • Thread starter Thread starter David Black
  • Start date Start date
D

David Black

There is an item in my recycle bin that for some reason
has become invisible. I need to get this item visible so
that I can return it to its proper location. Before you
ask how do I know if there is an item in my recycle bin
when it is not visible, the answer is because when I run
disk cleanup it tells me that there is an item in the
recycle bin that can be deleted. Any help in the
resolution of this issue will be greatly appreciated.
 
Hey David,

Have you tried looking in the folder hierarchy on each disk volume, there
should be a folder in the root directory of each volume called RECYCLER

It is a system file, and its hidden, so if you have not done so already set
the appropriate folder view options.

control panel/Folder Options/View Tab

Select, show hidden files and folders
Unselect, Hide protected opertating system files (Recommended)

You should now see the RECYCLER folders and their contents.

Paul
 
Thanks for your suggestion. I performed the steps
exactly as you stated and I was able to locate the
Recycler folder and I was able to open the folder, but
when I tried the view the contents of the folders I still
received a blank screen, thus not showing me the item
contained which is still preventing me from returning
this item to its proper location. I would appreciate
further assistance in getting this issue solved.
 
Did you check the recycler folder hierarchy on every disk volume ?

Try going to a command prompt and using the commands
On each of your disk volumes

cd recycler
dir/a/s

This shows hidden files and itterates through the subfolders.

On this system, although disk cleanup reports 0K to be reclaimed on each of
3 disk volumes, and even though I can see a number of folders in windows
explorer beneath the RECYCLER folder , with some intenal name
eg. D:\RECYCLER\S-1-5-21-789336058-507921405-1957994488-1003

on each volume windows explorer shows no contents. Bit wierd, perhaps
windows xp has an index file somewhere it uses to keep track of the recycle
bin, as it doesnt seem to scan the actual folder contents.

However from the command prompt dir/a/s shows a number of files. Several of
which I've successfully copied to a normal directory.

The files from a command prompt don't have their original names but you may
be able to find what you're looking for and copy/rename it back to where it
came from. Then delete it from the recyler hierarchy.

I'm off to see if I can find some internals info on the recycle bin.

Paul
 
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