Removing Windows files

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With a new copy of Windows 7 Professional, I installed it onto my system and then discoverd that I had inadvertently placed it on my data drive (a second physical hard drive in the computer). So I started over, this time making sure to install it onto my intended boot drive. With my second attempt successful, I then turned my attention to removing the unwanted Windows files form my data drive.

No way, jose…

– I made sure that I was running the copy from the boot drive and tried to remove the unwanted folders
– I tried Safe mode
– I tried Safe mode with command prompte
– I set all file attributes to RW
– I tried running REGSVR (okay, that was desperate and dumb)
– I took the data drive out of the box and connected it to a different computer

ACCESS DENIED!

Is there any way to do this? Are there any old-style Norton-like utilties that can turn these unwanted folders into unallocated clusters? Anything??

Rick A.
Pleasanton CA

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GParted Live CD will allow you to format the partition. Parted Magic ( http://partedmagic.com/download.html ), will allow you to delete files and folders or format the partition. Puppy Linux, Knoppix also–booting to a live Linux OS or Utility CD should give you unrestricted access.

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Hi and welcome

If you are refering too the windows.old folder that can be removed via the disk cleanup wizard. If not you can take ownership of the whole folder give yourself edit rights and delete it. If it still wont let you there are t ons of third party apps that will

Good Luck

Ken

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Ken, many thanks — I had forgotten all about that back-door Safe Mode maneuver to take permission of folders. That worked great.

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If there is nothing on that partition that you need, go to Disk Management (click click My Computer and choose Manage), right click on the offending partition and choose Format.

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