Help! Cant delete files!

[AtomicDude512]

My brother was messing around with encoding movies. He is recording game play using FRAPS. He left an uncompressed 2GB (!) file on my computer. I try to delete it but it says that it is in use, after that It locks up my computer. Even after I restart it dosent work.

Windows XP Pro
NTFS

 

[edro]

Sounds like you are gonna have to boot up with a Boot disk and delete it in DOS. Or, you can try pressing F8 during boot up and entering Safe Mode, then delete it.

 

[Smilin]

"...after that it locks up my computer"

Ouch!

Do this:
Run a chkdsk with the /f switch. Let it complete and try the deletion again. If that doesn't work do a safe boot and try to delete it. If that doesn't work goto the recovery console delete it from the command prompt. If THAT doesn't work come back here and I'll come up with plan C.

Oh yeah, one more thing... Slap your brother.

 

[AtomicDude512]

Oh yeah, one more thing... Slap your brother.

Tempted...:

 

[Doh!]

I assume the encoded movie is in .avi format? If so, you can temporarily delete the following registry, delete the file and restore the registry setting once done:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\.avi\shellex\PropertyHandler => delete the value data

Copy the value before deleting so that you can restore it after deleting the .avi file.

 

[AtomicDude512]

Thanks Doh! That worked.

 

[dpid]

hey, i had a problem similar... I couldn't delete this one .avi file.

i couldn't delete it because winxp pro would keep saying that the file is in use.

so i just hit Run and went into command prompt.
i was able to delete it from there


A question. I noticed on my computer, if I transfer files (especally big movie files) between my 2 HD's, my computer becomes very slow... I mean that my CPU is being utilized by explorer.exe @ 98-100%. I have a 7200rpm and 5400rpm (both 2mb cache) HD's. In general does Movie files cause explorer.exe to incorrectly use too much resouces (perhaps a bad prereading of the video file)?