corrupted files

hemlock

New Member
Hello,

Recently I backed-up several program files to CD R/W. At the end of the process, the temporary files used in that process were deleted and sent to the Recyle Bin by the opsys (XP SP2).

I attempted to delete the files in the usual way - "Empty the Recycle Bin" option. This didn't work for a few of the folders as some of the files (programs) were in use. The opsys had a lock on the NAME (it seems) and it didn't matter that the folders and their contents (with duplicate names, obviously) existed in two different locations - Program Files and Recycle Bin.

Used Eraser to try and force the folder out of the R-Bin. Still got error messages related to the files in use, but did get rid of some of the remaining contents. HOWEVER, many of the files in the Program Files
folder, which was NOT the target of the erase operation, then showed a length of zero bytes. I didn't realize this until I tried to use one of the products involoved in this whole mess and got error messages that various DLLs were not "valid applications". Locating their entries in the correct Program Files folder revealed the zero length problem. Had to restore and re-install.

I'm very sorry for the long-winded entry. I'm wondering how eraser gets the physical disk addresses for the over-write operation and how the entries for files are affected in whatever "index" the opsys uses to keep track of the contents of the hard drive - ESPECIALLY in a case where there are duplicate folders involved.

Thanks for listening. Any comments?
 
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