Can't delete files on a full hard drive - Page 2

**bigal** · 07-03-08, 11:47 PM

No Intelligeorge

Well, things have gone from bad to worse. I tried access the hard drive on my vista based laptop and it didn't recognise it. I put it back into my desktop and now windows won't load. Says it's miss the hal.dll file. Windows cd doesn't recognise the drive now.

Have taken it to work where my computers at work run xp. I've bought a hard disk recovery program and have now managed to rescue all my "lost" files.

Thanks everyone for your help. I suppose I needed to reinstall windows to speed it up anyway, just didn' want to do it now... Oh well.

**ssrattus** · 08-03-08, 01:01 AM

a missing hal.dll usually means boot.ini has been corrupted... probably by vista it would seem....

**Colin 2905** · 08-03-08, 09:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by therufus

A Linux live CD won't work either, as you can read from an NTFS partition but you can't write to it. Writing includes deleting, as both modify the file table.

MEPIS can, as can probably numerous others.

**tytower** · 22-03-08, 04:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Colin 2905

MEPIS can, as can probably numerous others.

Yep Mandriva too.

I would have run a linux Live disc and bit copied the drive to a new larger drive-you know dd......../source...../dest just as a first try .

If no go then installed xp on a new drive on desk machine ,hooked in the old drive as slave and copied them across. Format the old drive and use it as extra storage if it is OK.

The problem if your drive is filled right up is there is no room to transfer or do anything unless you can find a way to make the room .

I have had this and now format the larger disks to about 95% capacity and then if this happens again you can run gparted or something like that to resize the partition to give a little room to move stuff.
I have to remember to reset the darn thing or I get caught again.

**bigal** · 23-03-08, 01:11 AM

As luck would have it, when I first installed windows on my system, it (or the bios) automatically setup up a raid configuration with the spare drive I had connected (both 200gig). This was strange as I never asked it to and the drive had information on it.
It appears that the error I had was due a windows problem (not the hard drive) as when I booted up with the second drive, I still had the same problem with being unable to delete anything (either within windows, safe mode, dos or with another computer). Whenever I restarted, windows would always say that the drive was full and the files I had previously deleted were there again. Just one of the strange unexplained things!!! Maybe Mulder might know?

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07-03-08, 11:47 PM	#21 (permalink)
bigal Member iTrader: (7) Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Perth Posts: 51 Spent time on board: 3 Days and 13:25:13	No Intelligeorge Well, things have gone from bad to worse. I tried access the hard drive on my vista based laptop and it didn't recognise it. I put it back into my desktop and now windows won't load. Says it's miss the hal.dll file. Windows cd doesn't recognise the drive now. Have taken it to work where my computers at work run xp. I've bought a hard disk recovery program and have now managed to rescue all my "lost" files. Thanks everyone for your help. I suppose I needed to reinstall windows to speed it up anyway, just didn' want to do it now... Oh well.

08-03-08, 01:01 AM	#22 (permalink)
ssrattus Super Moderator iTrader: (0) Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 1,366 Spent time on board: 1 Month, 0 Weeks, 4 Days and 5:04:02	a missing hal.dll usually means boot.ini has been corrupted... probably by vista it would seem....

23-03-08, 01:11 AM	#25 (permalink)
bigal Member iTrader: (7) Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Perth Posts: 51 Spent time on board: 3 Days and 13:25:13	As luck would have it, when I first installed windows on my system, it (or the bios) automatically setup up a raid configuration with the spare drive I had connected (both 200gig). This was strange as I never asked it to and the drive had information on it. It appears that the error I had was due a windows problem (not the hard drive) as when I booted up with the second drive, I still had the same problem with being unable to delete anything (either within windows, safe mode, dos or with another computer). Whenever I restarted, windows would always say that the drive was full and the files I had previously deleted were there again. Just one of the strange unexplained things!!! Maybe Mulder might know?

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