HELP! Accidentally put period at end of folder (1 Viewer)

[MarkHastings]

Ok, I f'ed up! :b I've got a period at the end of one of my folders (WinXP). I can't rename it or delete it because I get a directory error. Obviously the period is causing the system to look in another directory and is erroring out, but what can I do to get rid of the folder?

Thanks

 

[Marko Berg]

Can you change the folder name at the command prompt? It's worth a try.

 

[Chris Bardon]

Really? I just tried creating/deleting a folder name ending in a period and it worked fine. Try going into the options and unchecking "Hide extensions for known file types" option. Most people have that option enabled, and it could be messing you up.

 

[JohanD]

In DOS you can rename a file or folder with an illegal character by using the following method.

Lets say your folder name is F/LDER.. / is an illegal character so it will freak out.

You can type

ren F?LDER FOLDER
the ? is a wildcard for a single character that works when the * sometimes does not. In windowsXP you CAN have a folder with a period in it.. that is not an illegal character. Strange that it won't let you do anything to it.

Make sure that the folder or any files inside of it are in use also. That will cause it to not delete.

 

[MarkHastings]

Yes, I always have that unchecked.

JohanD, the period is at the end of the folder name. I've emptied the folder and rebooted so it's empty and no processes are attached to it.

I'm trying to delete (or rename) it through the dos prompt, but I need help.

The file is on a secondary Hard Drive and I don't know how to send the Dos prompt to the F: drive??? I've tried "cd F:" but it won't work. How do I do this?

If all else fails, I'll back up my files (without this folder) onto my 3rd hard drive and just erase/wipe my F drive and then copy back, but still....it's quite puzzling.

 

[MarkHastings]

Perhaps it's the way the folder was created? I should explain...

I was working in Adobe Encore (DVD software) and I when I saved the project, I had the period at the end of the file name...knowing that the system would add the appropriate file extension, I clicked "save" without worrying about the period at the end of the file name.

BUT, when Encore saves a project, it also creates a folder with the same name as the project (for adding all the VOB, menu, etc. files), that's where the folder with a period (at the end) came from.

I deleted all the Encore files, but the folder is still giving me troubles. Again, I rebooted to make sure that an Encore process wasn't holding onto the folder, but still nothing...

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Just type "F:" then hit enter. Your prompt should change to the F: drive.

 

[MarkHastings]

AH! That did it, thanks, but JohanD's thing didn't work. It still gave me a directory access error.

I think I'm going to just wipe it.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Check the properties and see if the folder is write-protected in some way. And there is certainly nothing illegal about ending a folder name with a ".", anymore than there is in naming a file. If you mean to call something "file.txt" and accidently end up with "file.", you can still manipulate the file.

How are you tring to get rid of the thing from the command prompt? You can't delete a folder using the DEL command - that deletes the folder contents. RMDIR (remove directory) was the old DOS commeand. Not sure if it is the same in Windows - I've never needed to do this sort of thing from the command prompt in XP.

BTW, since you can obviously open the folder, even if you can't delete it, check the properties and make sure that all the "hide files" options (for system and hidden folders) are tunred off. It sounds lke there could be a hidden file which is preventing you from deleting the file. It can't be the period at the end that's doing all this.

Regards,

Joe

 

[MarkHastings]

I assumed because that's the error message I'm getting.


Ugh, well, I'm doing the "erase the drive" thing when I get a chance. I've moved my stuff to the other drive and I'm working off there until I get a chance to wipe my F drive.

Thanks for the replies though. It's too bad this is so damn stubborn.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

Before you delete (if I'm not too late) go to the command prompt and type "attrib -r -a -s -h {path+folder name)"

like Attrib -r -a -s -h C:myfolder.

then do the directory removal.

Glenn

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

I just looked through the thread and can't see that you ever posted the exact text of the error message, which is the single most important thing in troubleshooting a problem like this. What is it?

Joe

 

[MarkHastings]

Ah...

When I try to delete the folder, I get this:


and when I try to rename it, I get this:



If you read my post #6 (on how the folder was created), the DVD software crapped out after it created the folder and the project never saved. Perhaps something happened during its creation? Could it be that the system doesn't know the folder exists? Stranger things have happened.

Well, whenever I get a slow point, I think we're going to wipe the drive so this may all be moot, but it's very odd indeed.

 

[MarkHastings]

One of the IT people just deleted it through the DOS prompt. She went to the F: drive and did:
rd /s USS

and it deleted the folder.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Did she delete everything under the f:USS folder? Seems like there were more subdirectories to that USS folder. Was that what you wanted to happen?

 

[MarkHastings]

Yeah, I backed up everything I needed so she just deleted the main directory and it all got deleted.

 

[Chris Bardon]

You know, I didn't even know that switch existed I always just used deltree, which I think got added in DOS 6, but which appears to have been taken out of the shell in the newer versions. Nice to know that there's still a command prompt option there though-I'll have to keep that one in mind.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Yeah, the "/s" switch deleted all subdirectories. It sounds like the programming dying in mid-folder creation produced a weirdly incomplete record such that the folder showed up in the FAT and was "visible" to Windows as an entry in the index, but some attribute was preventing Windows from finding it. The command line was able to.

Not sure what in those errors made you think the "." had something to do with the problem, but honestly, it didn't.

Regards,

Joe

 

[MarkHastings]

That does sound like a possibility. I couldn't think of an explanation, but that's kind of what I was getting at when I said it was there, but it feels like the computer doesn't know it's there.

 

[Ken Chan]

I doubt the RD found it either. It just blindly nuked the entire tree, a couple of levels up. It probably would have worked on the mark directory, as long as it was "remove mark" and not "remove everything in mark".

Just to be safe, you should run an error check on the drive to make sure there are no file system errors (in the Tools page of the drive's Properties dialog).