Strange subdirectory

My drive 2 (80G) is formatted NTFS. One of its subdirectories is one I never put there. The directory name is:

d:\1256ab2c8f2fbb72ea2d7e5bcc86a59a

with 6 subdirs:

asms download ic lang new update

This directory itself is R/W (I saved a text file there to test it) but all the subdirs are R/O and there has been no way to get rid of it. It doesnt seem to matter tho because it is zero bytes. Since it is NTFS it is not visible under DOS so I can't set it R/W by that method.

What is it it and should I care about removing it?

 

Sorry tenbob but you haven't given us much information regarding your O/S.

I also have this folder and I am running WinXP SP1 Home Edition. On my spare partition, these files for me are the original WinXP downloads. And they are kept here in case I wish to uninstall SP1.

 

I am also running XP Home SP1 but these directories indicate a zero number of files for zero bytes so how could they have anything for restoring after SP1?

An how in the world can I remove them since I can;t access the NTFS except thru windows

I do have an app that will READ the NTFS from DOS but in order to write it I would have to buy the app and I have had no other reason to write to it from DOS

 

1st try - start~run~cmd and use the attrib command to make them how you want them.

2nd try - log on with an account that has admin rights (administrator or any account that is a member of the administrator group) and take ownership of the folder. You should be able to get rid of it then.

But if you gotta get rid of them in order to sleep good and all else fails, boot to the recovery console and do a delete from the command line there.

Although a rename might be safest and then an week or so to see if there are problems. If not, then delete.

 

OK, I am sole user and therefore should have admin rights. If not, how do I do that and then How do I take ownership?

 

I agree that an admin user should be able to do anything to any part of the system. And I really don't know the "why" of taking ownership of a problem folder helping. But I do know that it often does.

But the how is as follows: (but this is with XP-pro and I only hope/assume that XP-home is the same)

- open Windows Explorer
- right-click the folder(s)
- properties
- security tab
- advanced
- owner tab
- change the owner to yourself. Even if you are already the one listed.

 

Hi Newt - there is no security tab (at least not in mine) for WinXP home edition.

 

Same reply as Barbara-Ann. No security tab and where there IS an advanced tab, there is no owner option

 

Take a look at HOW TO: Take Ownership of a File or Folder in Windows XP and see if that helps you.