did a system reinstall, cant delete old backup shit

Turns out it a "junction" and not a directory, according to CMD. Though I am having no luck finding anything on deleting junctions on google.

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It's not even a file, it's a junction, so how can it be screwing up your defrags?

the contents of a junction do not take up any space (they simply point to the original files in the original directory)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_junction_point

 

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I dont know, but when I defrag, it says that certain files cannot be moved. When i view the list, it points to this... shit.

 

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My guess is that it is some kind of corrupted file.

It all started when I used some program, can't remember the name, to update all my drivers. After I did that, this file was originally in my C:\windows directory.

I then got a virus and used my windows restore disk to reinstall windows, but i selected the option to just fix windows and not completely reformat.

When you reinstall windows that way, it saves all of your files and folders and programs and creates a folder in C C:\backup. This folder will have all the contents of your previous stuff. So the offending file was then in C:\backup\Windows

I went to delete the folder C:\backup and everything was deleted except this folder.

I then got frustrated and did a complete format and clean install, but the bastard was still there.

I don't even understand how it could survive a complete reformat!

 

Sure, some files normally can't be moved, but that's not hurting anything on a disk with over 50 GB free.

Basically a drive get's fragmented when free space is scattered over the disk such that when a large file is created it is written out in multiple pieces (fragments), then when reading back the file the read head has to make seeks to many different tracks just to read the file.

This Junction can't cause that problem.

Indeed, with disks as large as we have now fragmentation just isn't that much of an issue, and with the much higher performance (rotational speed, seek speed, transfer rates) of current disks I suspect it would be nearly impossible for you to actually notice the performance difference reading back a large file even in a highly fragmented disk (several years of use with only deleting files but no defrag ever run).

 

Nope.

Leave it alone and get on with your life.

You have wasted WAY too much time over a non-issue.

 

*sigh*... yeah... ok. Thanks man!

 

Skaught - it's not a corrupted file. It's probably pointing to a former directory that's been erased. It's a remnant from your configuration before you cleaned your disk. If it's messing with defrag I'm wondering if it's creating an infinite recursion....anyway: you should be able to get rid of it with RMDIR.

 

Tried it... to no avail

 

What the hell??? Suddenly, it allowed me to delete it... Just like that??? Weird!

Thanks to everyone who responded!

 

(I had said this was a service pack uninstaller.)

A service pack is an upgrade to the operating system, a patch, to fix some set of problems that Microsoft has found deep down in the operating system. In case it causes you some new problem, Microsoft provided a way to remove the service pack, an uninstaller. And that's all this is. Or was. Hopefully RMDIR will nip it in the bud.

 

OK good. Congratulations.

You can buy us all a brewsky....

:cheers:

(make mine Duvel.)

 

Will do! I owe y'all one!