Mystery folder

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\Bob>dir /x /a
Volume in drive C is Kick Ass Drive
Volume Serial Number is F833-7C0A

Directory of C:\Documents and Settings\Bob

11/14/2003 09:53 AM <DIR> .
11/14/2003 09:53 AM <DIR> ..
09/19/2003 06:52 AM <DIR> APPLIC~1 Application Data
11/14/2003 09:53 AM <DIR> Cookies
11/13/2003 08:30 AM <DIR> Desktop
11/04/2003 06:49 AM <DIR> FAVORI~1 Favorites
10/19/2002 07:50 AM <DIR> LOCALS~1 Local Settings
11/13/2003 02:45 PM <DIR> MYDOCU~1 My Documents
08/11/2003 04:07 PM <DIR> NetHood
11/14/2003 09:12 AM 5,242,880 ntuser.dat
11/14/2003 09:58 AM 1,024 NTUSER~1.LOG NTUSER.DAT.LOG
11/13/2003 08:03 PM 280 ntuser.ini
10/19/2002 07:50 AM <DIR> PRINTH~1 PrintHood
11/14/2003 09:57 AM <DIR> Recent
09/05/2003 10:14 PM <DIR> SendTo
10/07/2003 07:04 AM <DIR> STARTM~1 Start Menu
10/19/2002 12:00 PM <DIR> TEMPLA~1 Templates
10/19/2002 12:23 PM <DIR> UserData
10/19/2002 10:33 PM <DIR> WINDOWS
11/12/2003 05:03 PM 207,473 ~
4 File(s) 5,451,657 bytes
16 Dir(s) 99,991,736,320 bytes free

C:\Documents and Settings\Bob>dir /x /a


If the above listing is for the directory where the folder/file is located, the item I noticed is the last file which has a tilde (~) for the name.

To make a screen shot, do the following:

Navigate to the window you want to take a shot of.

Hold down your Alt Key and press your Print Screen Key, absolutely nothing will appear to happen. (but it has pasted the image of the screen to the clipboard)

Open MS Paint

Select Edit, Select Paste

This will bring up a bitmap image of the window

Select File, Select Save As

use the drop down list in the save as box to save it as file type .JPG

Save it to a location you can find it.

Navigate to this thread, select post a reply, near the bottom of the reply box is a section that says

Attach file:
Maximum size: 1048576 bytes

Click the browse button next to the attach file text window.

Navigate in the Choose File window to where you saved the image of the window.

Highlight the file, select open

Click the reply button.




:cool:

I think I found it!

Look at the last file on the list in JDC2000's post:

"11/12/2003 05:03 PM 207,473 ~
4 File(s) 5,451,657 bytes
16 Dir(s) 99,991,736,320 bytes free"

"11/12/2003 05:03 PM 207,473 ~"

Is that the 'folder' that you are seeing? If so, That 'folder' is actually a misnamed back up of your MS Outlook address book. There are several fixes on the forum for it.

Michael

This should be the image.

^Bump^

I couldn't recreate that no matter what or how hard I tried.....


????

Two thing to try to shed some more light on this:

1) From the same view you used in the screenshot, right-click the mystery folder and choose "Properties" form the menu. With the properties displayed, press ALT+PRTSCRN and post the results here.

2) Click Start, Run. Type "cmd" and press enter. If the screen comes up in a window, fine. If not (if it's full screen) press ATL+ENTER to force it to a window. In the window, type "cd\" end press enter. Now type "dir /ad /on /p" and press enter. (This will list just the directories on the root of C:, ordered by name, and will pause and the end of the first screen). Now press ALT+PRTSCRN to get a screen shot and post the results back here.

This should be the screen shot reguested. Hope it helps:)

Mystery folder "Properties" screenshot...

I think that this is just some remnants left in the Master File Table. Go to the Command Prompt and type "chkdsk /f" without the quotes, then restart the PC. That should sort out any orphaned file fragements and fix the MFT.

{hanging head in shame}
OK, so its taken us how many post before someone suggested a simple chkdsk and/or scandisk? Good call, SuperSparks. Sometimes the obvious things slip right by. Can't wait to see bojovan's response.

Thanks SuperSparks!

I would just like to graceiously point out that I had already suggested a chkdsk earlier, couldn't find the exact posting cause there's so many frickin postings in here

Penner is drunk

what does flog mean?

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SuperSparks
I think that this is just some remnants left in the Master File Table. Go to the Command Prompt and type "chkdsk /f" without the quotes, then restart the PC. That should sort out any orphaned file fragements and fix the MFT.

---

Still there everyone:(

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SMS Avenger
I would just like to graceiously point out that I had already suggested a chkdsk earlier, couldn't find the exact posting cause there's so many frickin postings in here

Penner is drunk

what does flog mean?

---

Ooops! I had scanned the thread for "chkdsk", but missed the earlier post referring to "check disk". Proper credit due to SMS Avenger.

Since chkdsk didn't work, we're back to square one. I remeber back in the old days you could use an ALT+0255 to generate a character the looked like a space, but wasn't. It was a simple trick to keep people from removing/renaming files on a DOS system. I tried doing the same thing in command window from W2K and XP, but it doesn't work: it actually displays the character "ÿ". Perhaps this is a similar situation.

Whatever the specifics, it seems there's no way top remove it with the native OS loaded. So I'm thinking that if the drive is formatted with FAT32, he could boot from a Win98 floppy, then go to C: drive and possibly use deltree to get rid of it. Since the actual name is still a mystery, he'd have to do a "deltree *.*" at the root, then say NO to any files/folders that actually display a legitimate name, answering YES only the one that presents no name.

BOJOVAN: Please do not follow this suggestion right away! You could do some serious damage and lose data if it's done wrong. I'd appreciate any feedback on this suggestion from the others in the group. Perhaps there's a safer way to accomplish what I'm suggesting?