Deleted files not found in Recycle Bin

[comp_see]

My friend has a system with dual boot: Windwos XP Home, Windows 98. His hard drive (one only in the system) is partitioned into many partitions:
C: Win98 - installed with Windows 98 (FAT32)
D: App98 - installed applications under Win98 (FAT32)
E: 98Data1 - data files for Win98 (FAT32)
F: 98Data2 - data files for Win98 (FAT32)
G: WinXP - installed with Windows XP Home (NTFS)
H: AppXP - installed applications under WinXP (NTFS)
K: XPData - data files for WinXP (NTFS)

He boots in WinXP. If he deleted (just press DEL key) a file from E, he can't find it in the Recycle Bin. I tried that and even dragged the file into the Recycle Bin on the desktop. The file disappear in E drive but not shown in the Recycle Bin.

However, I did the same for files in F:, I can see the files shown in the Recycle Bin.

If anyone has any clue on this strange situation, please advice me, thanks.

[Welshjim]

comp_see--Perhaps your friend has set things up on certain drives to bypass the Recycle Bin when deleting items.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/320031

[comp_see]

Welshjim, thanks for your reply. However, if he had set that, this should be applied to every deletion. But when I delete a file from F drive, I can see that in the recycle bin. Only files in E drive being deleted are lost.

[Welshjim]

comp_see--What drive is the operating system in when you delete from E:\ and F:\ respectively?

[Falcon Speed]

Make sure not to hold the SHIFT key down when deleting because it will not drop into the recycle bin.

[comp_see]

Hi, I was busy so did not check the forum recently. Thanks for your advices.

I can't remember whether he has 2 physical drive or one. But I did try to simulate the situation by myself. We are in G: drive, WinXP and [Shift] key is not held down when performing the file deletion. I also drag the file to the Recycle Bin which is on the desktop of WinXP. In both cases, the "deleted" files are not found in the Recycle Bin.

This only happens when we deleted the files from E drive which is FAT32, but not from F drive which is also FAT32.

[K G G]

The recycle bin for every partition can be set individually I believe. Right click the R-bin and check the deletion settings.

[TheTeenScripter]

The recycle bin for every partition can be set individually I believe. Right click the R-bin and check the deletion settings.

Yes, make sure to check the box "Use one setting for all drives"

[Welshjim]

comp_see--If your friend ever needs to recover files that bypassed the Recycle Bin, an Undelete Program should be considered.
Some free ones are
http://www.webattack.com/get/restoration.html
http://www.recuva.com/
http://www.pcinspector.de/Sites/file...htm?language=1

[TheTeenScripter]

comp_see--If your friend ever needs to recover files that bypassed the Recycle Bin, an Undelete Program should be considered.
Some free ones are
http://www.webattack.com/get/restoration.html
http://www.recuva.com/
http://www.pcinspector.de/Sites/file...htm?language=1

good idea

[romb]

I had a similar situation: drive H deletions not going to recycle bin, other partitions ok. WinXP (and dual-booting with Win98SE). H is a large partition (140GB). All partitions are FAT32.

What worked for me is:
Tick the checkbox for "Use one setting for all drives ..."
Tick the checkbox for "Do not move files to the recycle bin ..." (This clears the recycle bin completely, so be sure you want to do this.)
Restart the PC.
Clear the checkbox for "Do not move files to the recycle bin ..."
I started with a 2% maximum size (so the 3.99GB limit was not reached), but I doubt if that was necessary.
Restart again.
Increase the maximum size to 8% (which brings the H size up to 3.99GB again, and others to something reasonable).

I don't have any idea how it originally came about, but it's been ok since.

[romb]

Oops! Now I've rebooted in Win98SE, the recycle bin has disappeared again! So maybe it's something to do with the dual boot.

More when I fix it again!

[fink]

Keep us posted

[rambler]

It's likely the Recycler folder has become corrupted on the problem drive(s). The files ARE going in there, they're just not showing up in the Recycle Bin window (Windows Explorer). A file manager like Total Commander, which doesn't use the Explorer interface will show just what's in there. The solution is to delete the Recycler folder on the problem drive. To do this you need to be able to view system and hidden files/folders. In Explorer (or My Computer), Click Tools>Folder Options>View

Put a checkmark in the checkbox labelled Display the contents of system folders.
Under the Hidden files and folders section select the radio button labelled Show hidden files and folders.
Remove the checkmark from the checkbox labelled Hide file extensions for known file types.
Remove the checkmark from the checkbox labelled Hide protected operating system files.
Press the Apply button and then the OK butto.

Now use Explorer or My Computer to view folders on the drive, right-click Recycler folder, and holding <shift key> down, click Delete. Windows will ask if you want to delete the system folder, click yes. Reboot and Windows will recreate the folder from scratch. Reverse the settings made to Folder Options if you don't want to be bothered with annoyances like desktop.ini files appearing all over the place, and especially if you want to restore some level of protection against other (less careful) users of your PC.

I recently deleted an apparently empty recycle bin for a friend who had "disappearing drive space" syndrome, and recovered 25 gigs of space. The "invisible" files were mostly CD images that Nero uses, 700Mb a throw.

[romb]

Everything here relates to Windows 98SE and XP Home, with the FAT32 disk format in all partitions. This is what I believe to be true, but no guarantees!

How the recycle bin works (if you don't care, go down to the "workaround"!)

Deleted files are stored in the partition from which they are deleted, in a folder \RECYCLED. Names are changed to Dxn.yyy, where x is the drive (partition) letter, n is an incrementing number and yyy is the extension of the original file. In addition, the RECYCLED folder contains a desktop.ini file (with a CLSID, which I suppose defines this folder as a part of the Recycle Bin) and a file INFO2. INFO2 holds information about each deleted file, including its original filename, location and time of deletion. Every time a further file is deleted from this partition, its details are appended to the INFO2 file. These two files are hidden, but you can see them listed using DOS command "dir /ah", and copy them with "xcopy filename1 filename2 /h" so you can look at the file content (I use Hexedit).

When you look at the Recycle Bin (from the desktop icon), you see an aggregated list of files from the INFO2 files in all partitions (the original file names, not the Dxn.yyy names).

Dual boot systems

The problem with this, in a dual boot system, is that the format of the INFO2 file is different in Windows 98 and Windows XP. (You can easily see this: the 98 version starts with a hex 04 character, the XP version with hex 05. The behaviour of the Recycle Bin is also slightly different in the two operating systems: Windows 98 deletes all these files when you empty the bin, while XP puts default files INFO2 (20 bytes) and desktop.ini (65 bytes) in each partition. When you look in the bin (from the desktop icon) , Windows 98 deletes any incompatible INFO2 files (left by XP), whereas XP accepts existing INFO2 files and creates new ones where not already present. This leaves any (incompatible) INFO2 files created by Windows 98, but XP cannot read them. (I can't imagine why Microsoft thought this was ok!)

XP time-stamps all INFO2 files when it shuts down (even the incompatible ones!).

The result of all this is that if you have deleted files in 98, and then you run XP, that partition's RECYCLED folder contains an incompatible INFO2 file, which XP cannot read, so the Recycle Bin always appears to be empty of files from that partition. If you delete further files in XP, from the same partition, the file details are appended to the incompatible INFO2 file as usual, but XP still cannot read the file. The files you have deleted in 98, and any you delete in XP, do indeed go into the RECYCLED folder, with their coded names Dxn.yyy. There is no way to rebuild the INFO2 file from the present Dxn.yyy files - they do not hold the source information. But you can copy those files out and rename them.

A workaround

Since I mainly use XP, I don't mind not having a Recycle Bin for Win98 (but I do want to be able to delete things in 98, without having to remember to hold down the Shift key!) So: Set the Win98 Recycle Bin to "bypass", and delete the Win98 desktop "Recycle Bin" icon so nobody even looks at it. Then empty the XP Recycle Bin to clear the rubbish and eliminate any existing incompatible INFO2 files. That way, Win98 never touches the RECYCLED folders, and the XP Recycle Bin now works properly.

NTFS

I understand that this situation only arises if you keep the FAT32 format, since NTFS uses a different folder for its Recycle Bin. (I think it's called RECYCLER.) But with dual boot 98/XP, you really want to stay with FAT32, so Win98 can read/write everything.