How would I delete the root directory?

[dakota81]

Just have a computer here from a company which could not boot and I saw that the root directory on the drive was completely empty, no files of any sort. Windows is set not to display system or hidden files in explorer, and also the entire drive was set as shared in the internal network.

This is I'm sure just an accident, and I'm wondering how Windows might have allowed someone to delete all files including system hidden read-only files from the root directory. When the machine gets returned I'll stop sharing the entire directory. But for now, I'm just curious over how this probably happened.

 

[dakota81]

I'll just further say that these are not exactly tech-savvy people, they would not have done anything that Windows does not easily let them do. I'm talking they never would have gone to a dos prompt & changed all the attributes with attrib command, for instance, or adjusted explorer to show system & hidden files.

 

[wolluf]

Do you mean the root of the drive has no files?

I'm also a bit confused - machine won't boot - so where are you seeing 'no files'?

Hardware problems can cause these symptons on win98 machines (apparent disappearance of part of filestore - may return of its own accord. Running scandisk usually finds missing stuff, but recovers it as chk files).

 

[torturedmind]

...the root directory on the drive was completely empty, no files of any sort.

kinda confusing as to how did you know if the entire drive is shared and how were you able to see the contents inside windows if you say entire root is empty. you should have at least seen the file "COMMAND.COM".

Windows is set not to display system or hidden files in explorer, and also the entire drive was set as shared in the internal network.

if the drive is shared having full authorization, this could mean disaster to you especially if no password was set to protect it from access. it is possible that anyone across the network might have done the accidental "cleaning" of that hard drive. and if the person set his/her workstation to see ALL files including system and hidden files, then he/she may have successfully (but probably accidentally) deleted all the contents of that drive and his/her recycle bin will not hold any deleted contents from the network.

hope this helps. peace!

kilroy
philippines

"If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get one million miles to the gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside."

 

[fredje1]

A frendly word of advice if it's not broke dont fix it if it's broke take it to the junkyard and swap it for a new machine. Seriously tho how did you even get into windows if the hard drive was empty? How did you even boot if you didn't have command.com Usually if you have command.com ?which is 93890 kb you will allow you to boot into native dos. Then you can do a dir on C:\ drive and see only the command com is present and Windows dir. If the Windows Dir is empty then you will have to recover the Whole dir using the propper String command. This you can do in Dos. I assume this is what you did. That being the case Get a doss for dummies book and you can plug in the correct string that will get all the files returned hopefully. But you need to have usually the first character of the file. Your hard drive still has the information on it even if you have deleated all the files. You can never delete all the files unti'll you wipe out all of the disk with a complete format. You'll just have to be patient and go through the propper procidure to extract all the files. Hope this helps. If the files are not too important why don't you give it a clean bath and reinstall the os again. Or is this too much Trouble? Hope this helps. fredje1

 

[SimonDavis]

Are you actually looking at the root drive? Is there more than 1 disk - I'm not even sure if Win 95/98 can boot from anohter drive, but if it booted, and the 'root' drive is really empty, you have a very smart computer . . .!

 

[edfair]

How did you get the OS up and running to discover that the root was empty and how did you discover the file settings in explorer?

I normally would expect that this would be a network created problem and a user cleaned out what they thought was a logical drive. But I would expect the files to be moved to the recycle bin on the drive. But that may be a false expectation, I've never tried it to see if that really happens.

What OS?


Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[TekTippy4U]

Seeing the drives contents (or lack thereof) can easily be done via Slaving the drive. I notice also that dakota81 didn't explicitly say no FOLDERS, or no DIRs either - just NO Files (dunno - perplexed).

Also seems like a netwroking prob/issuse - If another with Admin rights can employ System Policy Editor and/or Remote REG - there ya go...I wouldn't think the remote HDD's 'local' user settings (as far as 'hidden' 'system' files go) would matter (when viewed from the server or just another Admin account tied into the Network)

TT4U

Notification:
These are just my thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions.
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[edfair]

I agree on slaving the drive. But getting access to explorer on the drive is another of those unknowns. It shouldn't be easy to get that answer given the issues since anything done on the system should point to the resident drive and the settings for the current system. It could be done by floppy as long as the msdos.sys from the failed system was on it to point to the right stuff.

And what networking?

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[TekTippy4U]

thoeretically , i guess
there's no need for the "files" on C:\ if doing a Network Boot...heck, there's no need for even a HDD in a Network boot --another possibility, suppose the Boot drive is D: E: or F: -- or even suppose a a previously setup 'dual boot' option in which D:\ has the Active Primary now., but didn't always. I'm speculating quite a bit, and without more info - who knows?

But the Networking thing ed -
dakota said "and also the entire drive was set as shared in the internal network"
I can easily take complete and total control of another machine, and (a) wipe out the registry (b) delete all the contents of the drive (c) incorporate system policies, etc, etc


TT4U

Notification:
These are just my thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions.
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