Re: Delete directory name that contains special characters


"Mr Bubba" <MrBubba@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:35B814CD-BAAC-4478-AEA1-93B640738DEF@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
John,

Thank you for your speedy reply!

Renaming the directory is not possible. The following error messages are
returned when trying to do so:

* Cannot rename file: Cannot read from source file or disk

I get the same message when trying to delete this directory via Windows
Explorer too except replace "rename" above with "delete."

I've tried the DOS command approach too with every conceivable wildcard
combination.

The following error message is always returned:

* The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect.

Here are a couple of other interesting points about this directory:

When viewing this directory's info using Properties from Windows Explorer,
the file name looks like this: P^ONE^~1 where the carrot symbols are
actually squares, (but I can't quickly figure out how to put a square in
this
response!). The same directory name format is displayed in the list when
selecting Start followed by All Programs.

If I run a dir /x from DOS, I notice the following:

* The short file name (8 character format) is blank, and
* The long file name is ONE+~1 where the + actually is the paragraph
symbol (backwards P with two vertical lines)

I don't know how to interpret these wacky results. It's odd that from
DOS,
the file name does not start with P. In fact, output from dir list
files/directories in alphabetical order and it's interpreting this file as
starting with the letter O.

As mentioned above, within DOS I have tried all of these variations (and
more):

* rmdir "P?ONE?~1"
* rmdir "P*ONE*~1"
* rmdir *P*ONE*"
* etc. etc.

I've also tried "chkdsk" with various flags, and a utility called
MoveOnBoot, and about 42 other shareware tools, in addition various Safe
Mode
options, and so on.

At this point, I'm thinking about taking a scratch awl to the sector of my
disk where this directory resides!

Thanks again for trying to help! I'm certainly open to other suggestions
too.

Brian

My next step would be to run a binary disk editor, find the sector that
contains the bad directory name and change all of the special characters
to standard alphanumeric characters. In the DOS days, Norton had an
editor that would have made this easy. Unfortunately it doesn't
understand the NTFS file format or long file names.
There is a program in the Microsoft Support Tools called
dskprobe that allows individual sector editing. It's very
dangerous to use because if you modify the wrong sector
you can end up with a reinstall job on your hands.
If you are going to try it, please do a good backup before
you start.


.

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