Recycle bin files with Japanese character filenames

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Pijuvwy

New Member
Although my Recycle bin appears empty, Eraser error list shows many files un-erased. An example message is
"(??) ? ?? ??? ?? ?? --?????.jpg (The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect.)"

I think these files had Japanese characters for all or part of their filenames. How can I empty them properly from my Recycle bin when they are invisible?
They must be taking up a lot of disk space.

I also have many other files which fail to erase from the Recycle bin, and there is no error explanation. This even occurs when I am not running any applications, so should not be due to the file being in use.

I am using version 5.86.1on Vista.

How can I fully empty these files from my Recycle bin? Remember, my recycle bin is "empty", except that these show up when I am using Eraser. I am trying to track down wasted space on my HD, as the available amount does not seem right.

Also, have never been able to find the eraser .tmp file.
 
I may be on the right track to finding the solution: I used an Explorer window to navigate to the address of an un-erased, invisible file. The addresses are shown in the error log from Eraser, as C:\$Recycle.Bin\S-1-5-21-0123456789-1234567890-2345678901-9876\$W2RYH56\ (I've put fake numerals ETC in the actual spots, in case this is personally identifiable information.)

The folders containing the un-erasable files appear now in Explorer, but the folders do not open by double-clicking nor by using the Open right-click option. Nor am I able to put a more complete address, including the folder name, into the Explorer address bar - it gives me a message saying to "Check the spelling and try again," even though the address I used is straight from the Eraser error log, and is to a folder I can now see at C:\$Recycle.Bin\S-1-5-21-0123456789-1234567890-2345678901-9876\$W2RYH56\

Now I need to find how to either open one of these folders (to rename the contents without Japanese characters), or to erase the folder successfully.
 
Some more success. I was able to right-click on the folder icons at C:\$Recycle.Bin\S-1-5-21-0123456789-1234567890-2345678901-9876\$W2RYH56\ This did not allow me to succesfully use Erase on those items, but i was able to right-click then select Delete. They still did not appear in my Recycle Bin, but I used Eraser again to wipe my recycle bin. This time, the error log did not include those files with Japanese filenames - they seem to be now gone.

But the error log did still include the other files, which could not be deleted for some unknown reason. No reason appears in the error log. These items have a slightly different address, instead of $W2RYH56\
 
Each slightly different address, of that form, referred to a distinct folder or archive which had been sent to the Recycle Bin, but which did not appear in the recycle bin. I was able to follow that procedure to remove each folder or archive. But I was not able to use the procedure to remove (or even view) individual files which had been sent to the Recycle bin.

When I used the address (from the Eraser error log) of an individual file (eg C:\$Recycle.Bin\S-1-5-21-0123456789-1234567890-2345678901-9876\$Q24J85A.jpg) the xplorer window does not navigate to such a file, but brings up a Properties box for that file, showing a filesize of 0 bytes. I am able to click on the Restore button, but I don't know where the file is restored to, or if it is restored at all, being filesize 0 bytes.

This method did me no good at all. Each of those individual files still appears in the new error log of Eraser, with the same filename. Are these filenames (and folder/archive names) generated by Eraser during the attempted erasing process?

How can I remove the zero-byte remnants of these last few files?
 
Japanese filenames will probably not be supported unless your system is running in the Japanese codepage in Windows (most English distributions default to EN-US) and since Eraser 5 isn't Unicode aware, your files can't be erased. The most direct solution is to switch to a command prompt and rename the file entries.

Recycle bin entries which can't be erased without any explanation has been a long-reported bug, of which none of us have any solution or any accurate reproducable case (http://eraser.heidi.ie/trac/ticket/1). My hypothesis is that the files have security permissions which prevent the erasure of the file.

Finally, about how you are unable to open or select files in the folder which you selected, it's to be expected, Windows treats all recycle bin folders specially, and is a Shell location. You won't be able to do normal operations with it. If you select the delete again, it permanently deletes the files and does not re-send it to the recycle bin.

It is possible that Eraser will generate a random filename in the same folder and be unable to erase it, as part of the phenomenon mentioned earlier.

Joel
 
Thanks for that Joel.

I only have about 10 files that I wasn't able to deal with, from hundreds initially. These are zero-filesize remnants located in the recycle bin, but not visible even when the options are set to show invisible files. They only appear in the Eraser log. So, how do I go about accessing them from Command-prompt to rename them etc?
 
Just cd into the directory containing the files and do a dir /A. Use ren to rename those files. Chances are, it won't work because if Eraser can't get rid of them the command prompt can't either - the files are probably locked by some program. But you can try nonetheless.

Joel
 
I'm afraid I am not familiar with using the command prompt, nor with your jargon. Please explain "cd", "dir /A" and "ren".
 
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