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Instead of bumping one of the other PC threads with a somewhat off-topic troubleshooting question, I figured I'd ask here.
As some may know, I recently got a new SSD for my windows install and programs. The old HDD is being used for storage and I was planning on deleting the old windows install and program installs to clear up space. Well, it would seem they've done a good job of making it difficult to delete the windows install.
After some searching, I thought I'd be able to remove it by changing ownership of the folder and changing permissions to allow for full control. Apparently that wasn't enough. It's still not allowing most things to be deleted. While I do have the important stuff backed up, there's a lot of stuff on the drive I'd rather not delete so I don't want to resort to reformatting the drive.
If anyone can point me to a sure fire way to delete the install, it would be appreciated!
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Most of them come with a great UI
It would only be a short learning curve for you to figure out how to use it and linux typically doesn't get bogged down with all that windows permission stuff on the NTFS file system
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Will the computer boot if you unplug the old HDD? The reason I ask is that sometimes Windows will install hidden files on a different partition than the main partition which may be why you can't fully delete the windows files from it. If it will boot fine with only the SSD drive connected then you can delete the partitions from the old drive and recreate them. The just format the drive after that and you are good to go.
I have about 400 GB of stuff that I don't want to delete. Most of it isn't REALLY important, but still stuff I'd rather not lose or have to replace. I don't have that much extra space for backing all of that up, so I might as well just pay for another internal drive if I'm going to do that.
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Originally Posted by sd1611
Will the computer boot if you unplug the old HDD? The reason I ask is that sometimes Windows will install hidden files on a different partition than the main partition which may be why you can't fully delete the windows files from it. If it will boot fine with only the SSD drive connected then you can delete the partitions from the old drive and recreate them. The just format the drive after that and you are good to go.
The HDD was added after completing the windows install and doing all of the updates. Would there still be a chance for something like that to have happened? I'll do that test if there's still a chance, but I wouldn't expect it.
The HDD is a single partition, so I'd be back at the point of reformatting the entire drive. I'd rather just spend the money on another drive than doing all of that to recover the (relatively) small amount of storage I would gain from deleting the windows install.
That's it Grant, or copy the stuff off to another disk temporarily and then format this disk and then put the files back on. Is this on a desktop? Mike has a 5TB NAS here at my house setup for the time being for movie/audio sharing/copying. You could do it here if you want.
The best thing to try is to just unplug the old hdd and try to boot the computer. If it boots fine with just the SSD, then you can probably get away with just deleting the old windows folder (make a backup first, of course).
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Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that belief can be preserved.
-Tim Minchin.
The best thing to try is to just unplug the old hdd and try to boot the computer. If it boots fine with just the SSD, then you can probably get away with just deleting the old windows folder (make a backup first, of course).
I did the boot with only SSD test (knew it had worked before adding the drive) and it still worked. And just deleting it didn't work... which is why I created the thread lol.
I finally figured it out. It was still an issue of permissions that I had missed. The setting that finally worked:
right click folder -> properties -> security tab -> advanced -> change permissions -> replace all child object permissions with inheritable permissions from this object
I thought another setting had done the same thing, but that finally fixed the permissions so I could delete everything.
I was kind of wondering about that... I've seen images and comments similar to that, but I knew better than to even think about trying it. While doing this, I was thinking about how difficult it was to actually delete it. I guess it's easier when you're running from the install since all the permissions are there.
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