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Remove files with special characters

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Jul 13, 2003
25
US
Hi,

I had a Windows 2000 server FTP service up for a couple of days and someone hacked in and added a whole bunch of folders with special characters (ones that Windows doesn't recognize I assume). Each time I try to delete or rename the folders, I get the error "Cannot delete file: Cannot read from the source file or disk." This is just on the newly created folders. I can add/delete/rename any other folder or file.

Next time I will lock it down.

Thanks,
Sean
 
BTW, I full admin rights on the server and have taken ownership, but I still cannot delete them. I have also tried through DOS, but no luck.
 
I ended up doing it all through DOS instead of finding a utility or something. Each file will have an 8 character DOS name associated with it and you can delete that through DOS. Just go into that directory and do a dir and you should see the DOS filename.
 
When you say "in DOS", do you mean a DOS window through the cmd.exe command? The same thing happened to me, with quite a few nested folders and files. Most of them contain invalid filesnames and characters, but when I try to delete even those with valid filenames, I get "Access Denied" messages, or "Could not find the source file or folder."
I'm having no success, so far.
 
In DOS, and key in "Dir /x" which will get short file name format, and try to delete file with short file or folder name.
 
To get to dos, go to start, run then type cmd. This will give you a dos box. Good luck.

Glen A. Johnson
If you're from Northern Illinois/Southern Wisconsin/Central Florida feel free to join the Tek-Tips in Chicago, Illinois Forum.
TTinChicago
Johnson Computers
[xmastree]
 
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