I have this folder on my F:\ drive that is named "ec6da31f6" and it contains folders:

common
sp1
sp2

I cannot delete any of these maps nor acces them, I tried by going to it through my computer and all that, and with Windows Commander it also won't delete. Any suggestions?

It gives me this error:

Tried deleting them through DOS?

Are you sure its not only the "common" folder? Try deleting each one individually and see what happens...

I know I could go into DOS and do it, but I don't know it it would damage my windows installation, and yes I tried to delete em manually... Think I can go delete em in DOS?

Go into safe mode, place those folders elsewhere for now, and go back into normal mode for a couple of days.

If nothing's wrong, then those folders should be safe to delete

lol, went in safe mode and still cant delete it there. Only rename/move the main folder "ec6da31f6", but still cant delete the folders inside it.. I am thinking that those are folders protected by windows or something, isn't there someway to disable that?

Thanks for your suggestions..

Those are your service pack installs and can be removed in the control panel, add/remove, I think. Later, you might have problems you know. You can boot with a boot disk (see the guides section) and delete anything. Just make sure you have copies of them like Aaron said.

BTW, can you make the picture a little smaller please.

In the past few weeks, i have noticed this problem while doing some tech work at my job....as it seems there is a nasty virus that will creat a folder on your Hd that can be hidden somtimes and is inacessable and non movable. Some how this virus creates a small partition on your main drive that usally is called "-" or somthing of that nature, in it contains a virus that can damage your system and disable NAV as well as Optical devises, the random folder on your HD contains instructions to access the small partition. Im not positive if this is your problem, but i have seen about 3 of these in the past two weeks. I reccomend loading up a xp pro disk and looking at the availiable partitions to install to. If the random and very small partition is there, u know what your infor, good luck


=Drew

35K! Oh please....

Drew, this might be the problem, this is a pretty fresh install and I haven't installed a virus scanner, so I will now... Gonna try it, thanx..

I installed NAV, it didnt detect any viruses, then went and boot into the XP installation cd, and didn't see any special drives.. so then I put a backup in that is a basic installation of XP with nothing but my video card driver... and still can't delete the folder... I can't acces it neither.. Now, I was thinking of formatting it but the HD is 70gigs and only has 6gigs free so im using bout 64GIG which I can only backup on my network and that'll take ages..Oh, and I also check out the guides section and cant find a Free NTFS boot disk, so I can't delete it through DOS...

Any suggestions?

I got a suggestion: Hide it and ignore it...If its not in your way, then leave it alone...

Ima have to live with it, even XP Recovery Console didn't want to delete it or acces the main folder..

Haven't you tried a system restore? Its not the same as the recovery console, is it? How about using a Win98 boot disk to boot into DOS?

I am refering to the width as it causes some monitors to scroll sideways. You might have 17 inch or larger monitor and would not notice it.

then it wouldn't recognize the NTFS drives, duh

I knew that... How about trynig to download one of the WinXP boot disks from MSFN's download section?

lol, read my posts, I tried it in DOS through the XP Recovery Console and it didn't want to delete it..

Open a Command Prompt window and leave it open. Close all open programs. Click Start, Run and enter TASKMGR.EXE Go to the Processes tab and End Process on Explorer.exe. Leave Task Manager open. Go back to the Command Prompt window and change to the directory the AVI (or other undeletable file) is located in. At the command prompt type DEL <filename> where <filename> is the file you wish to delete. Go back to Task Manager, click File, New Task and enter EXPLORER.EXE to restart the GUI shell. Close Task Manager.

This applies to XP.

Just tried that and it gave me "Acces denied" I can't enter nor delete it..

Check the permissions of the folders, and edit as according to the permissions access of your user account. Then try out the steps as MSNwar described above.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...kb;en-us;329260

How to Remove Windows XP Service Pack 1 Folders
The information in this article applies to:
Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP1
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition SP1

This article was previously published under Q329260

SUMMARY

Three folders are created when you install Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Windows XP and archive the files that are necessary to remove Windows XP SP1. These three folders contain temporary and archived files that you can use to remove Windows XP SP1. This article describes the purpose of these three folders, and which folders you can safely delete.

MORE INFORMATION
New Folders That Are Created When You Install Windows XP SP1

The following folders are created when you install Windows XP SP1:

%systemroot%\Servicepackfiles
%systemroot%\$NtServicePackUninstall$
folder name that contains 20 random characters, for example, 9470bb12e8a4f3447657236478e41c5

NOTE: The %systemroot% environment variable refers to your Windows folder.

etc ... http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...kb;en-us;329260