Recycle Bin Wants To Del Windows..

Just yesterday my girlfriend was about to empty her recycle bin and out of habit before emptying she looked in it to be sure there was nothing she actually wanted to keep. She decided there was nothing worth keeping and proceeded to empty it. Then a window popped up and asked something like "Are you sure you want to delete \windows ".... She answered No.

Everything she did want to get rid of did get deleted however the recycle bin icon still shows that there is something in there. She went back in and there were no files shown, but she clicked on empty again. She got the very same question about deleting Windows.

Does anyone have any idea why this is happening.
The system is not connected to the internet or a network.
It does have Adaware and spybot and PC-cillin installed and all are updated
manually from "clean" disks (cd's).

It's beyond me whats going on. She has asked if she should try answering Yes
but I'm not to sure what would happen.

 

Seems to be some kind of problem with disk. Try runing chkdsk /f on the hard disk.

 

just a point of no significance really but ... are the scanners updated? no inet/network connection and clean software installs so i'm wondering why the scanners at all?

do u have norton or any type of waste protection on this machine? eg - something that is subbing for recyler? maybe the warning isn't win at all.

an errant copy/del can produce something like this but it should show in the bin more or less.

test = copy \windows to \save_me and then purge. if u end up in trouble, REN it back to \windows and no harm, no foul.

 

This an execute and run. it'll show the deleted items from the recycle bin provided they haven't been over written by other deleted items.

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/restoration.html

If you do find it, look under In Folder, that'll tell you where it was.

Regards - Charles

 

rsinfo,

I have run chkdsk /f and have found no disk problems.


skeet6961,

Yes all scanners are updated and the reason for the scanners is more of a safety measure. The idea here is just incase someone were to but a disk (program) in that is holding a virus, trojan etc. We have also come across a game or 2 that actually installed spyware along with the game(s). The game(s)have never been re-installed, however that was on a different system.

TonyT,

The very first thing I said to my GF was exactly what you said. I couldn't believe it would actually be asking to DEL \Windows, because of the fact windows cannot DEL itself and couldn't for as long as I remember.

charlesvar,

I ran the execute you suggested and it did show "c:\Windows ". It showed it as being in the root directory.

But I still believe Windows would never delete itself, I think if it tried she would have gotten another error saying something like "cannot delete \Windows ".

I am going to try what skeet6961 suggested though "test = copy \windows to \save_me and then purge. if u end up in trouble, REN it back to \windows" and see what happens..

 

Windows is strange - but this is the limit.

 

oh yeah you can delete windows,at least my friend did,deleted windows 98 and i sat there and watched her and before i could say No! she done it. then she wanted to run scan disk!

she had to ran around to find a windows 98 cd and put it back on.

 

You can right click on the folder while viewing it in the recycle bin and choose properties and you'll be able to see how large it is and where it originally came from.

Perhaps your windows is installed to a winnt folder instead of a windows folder and that's why you were able to delete it. There's also a windows folder in your documents and settings\username folder. At least there is in mine. I have no idea what it's for. Mines empty except for a subfolder named system. The system subfolder is also empty. Perhaps it came from there?

 

I agree Windows is strange at times.

Just over an hour ago my area had a power outage that lasted about 20 minutes. When the computer was rebooted I noticed the recycled bin was now "empty', it seems the power going off fixed the problem ( if it was a problem).

I am still curious though why it said "\windows" was in the recycle bin but the recycle bin was showed nothing when opened.

Another windows mystery i guess