Deleting files from an old install on an old hard drive
You can use Takeown.exe first to take ownership of all files recursively. and then use the command to Bart mentioned to do deletion. See the below thread:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itprosecurity/thread/bb9e4b7c-43cd-410c-a612-23b0a096f207/#6266105e-16b8-4ba8-aa56-778dbf19a1d3
Hope this helps.-CrDev Blogs: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/satyem
January 14th, 2012 12:58am
I just installed Windows 7 Ultimate onto my new SSD, and now I wish to clear up space on my old hard drive by deleting all Windows OS related files. I've changed ownership to myself, and tried deleting it, however, I recieve the message "You need permission
to perform this action. You require permission from Gaming/Kendrick to make changes to this folder" whenever I try to delete a folder. I can go into the folder and delete each one of its containing files individually by selecting each file and changing the
permissions from each one, but that would take hours to do for all the files in Windows. I AM clicking the "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects" check when I change ownership, but that doesn't seem to be working. Any help is appreciated.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
January 14th, 2012 8:49am
Hi,
1. Are you going to re-use the old HDD as a Data storage?
2. Do you need data to be recovered from it? - if the old HDD contains system files only, and data no need to be recover, then the easiest way is to format the old HDD to make it clean drive.
BartBartosz Kurowski Senior Desktop Support, Microsoft Cerified Trainer. MCP, MCT, MCTS, MCITP, MOS
January 14th, 2012 9:00am
The old HDD has nearly 1.5 TB of data that I need to keep. If it wasn't for that, I would have just formatted and made my life easier, but sadly that's out of the question.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
January 14th, 2012 2:51pm
Open Command Prompt windows CMD and use RD command.
The command will remove selected directory, ex. RD /q /s c:\windows
BartBartosz Kurowski Senior Desktop Support, Microsoft Cerified Trainer. MCP, MCT, MCTS, MCITP, MOS
January 14th, 2012 3:08pm
Thank you, but when I do that I receive a whole bunch of access is denied messages when it tries to delete the files...
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
January 14th, 2012 4:38pm
You can use Takeown.exe first to take ownership of all files recursively. and then use the command to Bart mentioned to do deletion. See the below thread:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itprosecurity/thread/bb9e4b7c-43cd-410c-a612-23b0a096f207/#6266105e-16b8-4ba8-aa56-778dbf19a1d3
Hope this helps.-CrDev Blogs: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/satyem
January 14th, 2012 4:50pm