Deleting protected folders

[Cid]

How do I delete a random folder that appeared in my external harddrive called 5553105493a0a2931d3649606820 (and another one called 1737065d1b489f9850dddcb61097e6c2).

I don't know why they appear, and when I press delete, it says "You do not have permission to perform this action."

[XxSephirothxX]

I would suggest navigating to it in DOS and deleting it that way. It worked for me a couple times when I had files that mysteriously were impossible to delete in Windows.

[Yamaneko]

Under Control Panel > Folder Options > View, try unticking, "Hide protected operating system files" and then try to delete that folder.

[Mirage]

Maybe you shouldn't delete them? :p

[xtrava]

Possibly in safe mode you can delete them.

I have them too, and also have no idea why they appear and what produces them. I really should format sometime :p

[Baloki]

How do I delete a random folder that appeared in my external harddrive called 5553105493a0a2931d3649606820 (and another one called 1737065d1b489f9850dddcb61097e6c2).

I don't know why they appear, and when I press delete, it says "You do not have permission to perform this action."

These items are back-ups from Windows Update and Service Pack 2, along with System Restore files, deleting them is probably not a good idea...

If you must restart in Safe Mode and log in as Administrator, this will allow you to delete them.

Hope that helps.

[Cid]

How do I delete a random folder that appeared in my external harddrive called 5553105493a0a2931d3649606820 (and another one called 1737065d1b489f9850dddcb61097e6c2).

I don't know why they appear, and when I press delete, it says "You do not have permission to perform this action."

These items are back-ups from Windows Update and Service Pack 2, along with System Restore files, deleting them is probably not a good idea...

If you must restart in Safe Mode and log in as Administrator, this will allow you to delete them.

Hope that helps.

Yeah, it seems like that makes sense. They are service pack files. But why did they end up on my I drive instead of my C drive? And I have Vista now, so I don't need them.

[Baloki]

How do I delete a random folder that appeared in my external harddrive called 5553105493a0a2931d3649606820 (and another one called 1737065d1b489f9850dddcb61097e6c2).

I don't know why they appear, and when I press delete, it says "You do not have permission to perform this action."

These items are back-ups from Windows Update and Service Pack 2, along with System Restore files, deleting them is probably not a good idea...

If you must restart in Safe Mode and log in as Administrator, this will allow you to delete them.

Hope that helps.

Yeah, it seems like that makes sense. They are service pack files. But why did they end up on my I drive instead of my C drive? And I have Vista now, so I don't need them.

Ah Vista's going to be a different kettle of fish from XP. You'll need to log in as the administrator of your system and take ownership of the files and folders you wish to delete. From there you should be able to delete them as you please.

A guide on how to take ownership of files can be found at:

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/how-to-delete-a-system-file-in-windows-vista/

[crono_logical]

They ended up on that drive because when you ran a patch or update, Windows put the temp files on the drive with the most free space at that time, which must have been those ones :p

Also, you might find it easier taking ownership/giving yourself permissions to delete the files by opening an Explorer window in administrative mode then changing the file properties there rather then going through the command line :p