Vista Tutorial - Recycle Bin Corrupted - Cannot Delete File or Folder

**Brink** · **METHOD ONE:**

How to Fix a Corrupted Recycle Bin in Vista

Information

If you cannot Empty Recycle Bin or delete a file or folder inside the Recycle Bin, then this will show you how to fix the corrupted Recycle Bin so that you can by resetting it.

NOTE

This will show you how to delete the Recycle Bin to have Vista automatically create a new clean Recycle Bin that will work properly again.
If you can delete the files in the Recycle Bin and only the icon does not refresh back to a empty icon when you empty it and stays as the full icon, or the other way around, then see: How to Fix the Recycle Bin Icon Not Refreshing When Emptied

WARNING

This will permanently delete all files in the Recycle Bin for all user accounts on the computer

RELATED LINKS:

METHOD ONE:
Through the Command Prompt

NOTE

You may need to repeat this inside of each hard drive letter that you have installed.

1. Open a elevated command prompt.

2. In the elevated command prompt, type rd /s /q C:\$Recycle.bin and press Enter. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: For the other hard drive letters, substitute C: for the other hard drive letter instead. For example: rd /s /q E:\$Recycle.bin

3. Close command prompt window.

4. Right click on a empty area of the desktop and click on Refresh.
NOTE: The Recycle Bin should be empty now. If not, then repeat these steps for any other hard drive letter that you have. Also see: Recycle Bin - Restore

METHOD TWO:
Through Windows Explorer

NOTE

You may need to repeat this inside of each hard drive letter that you have installed.

1. Open Folder Options.
NOTE: For how, see OPTION TWO here: How to Hide or Show Hidden Files and Folders in Vista
A) Dot Show hidden files and folders.

B) Uncheck Hide protected operating system files.

2. Open the Start Menu. (See screenshot below)
A) Click on the Computer button on the darker right side.
NOTE: If you do not have the Computer button, then see OPTION ONE here to add it: How to Customize the Start Menu in Vista

3. Click on the C:\ drive, or the one that has Vista installed on it. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: For the other hard drive letters, just click on that hard drive letter and repeat the same instructions below.

4. Right click on the $RECYCLE.BIN folder and click Delete. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: If for some reason, Vista will not let you delete this file, then boot into Safe Mode and try to delete it again. For how to boot into Safe Mode, see: How to Start Vista in Safe Mode

5. Click on Yes. (See screenshot below)

6. Click on Continue. (See screenshot below)

7. Click on Continue in the UAC prompt.

8. Click on Yes. (See screenshot below)

9. Check the Do this for all current items box, then click Yes. (See screenshot below)

10. Vista will then automatically create a new $RECYCLE.BIN folder and Recycle Bin on the Desktop for you afterwards.
NOTE: You may need to press F5 to refresh the window to see the new $RECYCLE.BIN folder. If you still do not see a new one, then restart the computer to have it create a new one for you. Also see: Recycle Bin - Restore

11. Right click on a empty area of the desktop and click on Refresh.
NOTE: The Recycle Bin should be empty now. If not, then repeat these steps for any other hard drive letter that you have.

That's it,
Shawn

techsupport123 · 05-06-2008

Brink you Rock!!! man you resolved my issues

**Brink** · 05-06-2008

Your welcome TechSupport123, and welcome to Vista Forums.

LOL, I love that image. Is that rock floating in air, or am I imagining things?

Shawn

techsupport123 · 05-06-2008

I just love this site man. I'm actually working for one of the biggest company in the U.S. as a tech support over the phone and I'm glad this site exist.

shaneofastrotek · 05-07-2008

Ive tried everything on this site to empty my recycle bin but nothing works. they just stay there. i have not tried restarting the computer yet but everything else i have and nothing works. ive done the change your icon, ive tried that scan thing, and ive tried this method. so far no luck, just files still stuck in the bin that i cant delete. i even went to the folder where they were located in the recycle bin and still cant delete them. i would like to know if I am doing something wrong or if there is something else i can try less reinstalling my vista and all my softwares. if possible a direct contact with me to EMAIL LINK REMOVED BY Brink (Spammers will get it) would be easier for me to remember to check this. with finals and all my brain has been sludge lately lol

shaneofastrotek · 05-07-2008

ok as long as i remove the RB icon from the desktop it stays cleared in the folder but as soon as i place it on there again all the files show back up again. i dont understand what this means. does this mean they are still there or does this mean they have successfully been deleted. for now im just going to keep the icon off the desktop. i use a shredder now anyways to remove any files i no longer use but i would like to fix this problem

**sidney1st** · 05-07-2008

	Quote:	shaneofastrotek
	Ive tried everything on this site to empty my recycle bin but nothing works.

Go in safe mode (F8 when booting) and try to empty it from there.

trinomialtheory · 07-03-2008

Ok.. Where to begin.. let's see... ok! (this is kinda long sorry)

I have 2 drives on my PC. Drive C: is a backup drive just for holding data. Drive D: is where vista resides and is my default drive. Yes I know it's weird but when I initially got vista I accidently put it on C: which was my old xp drive I had all my music and such on. drive C: had no space on it after install. My other drive, D:, was a clean formatted 200gb drive that it was meant to be on. Somehow I chose the wrong drive to install vista on and fubared it. Since I had not activated vista yet I just reinstalled it on D: drive and defaulted to boot from it. All was well on D:, it booted up and ran just fine for the last year, absolutely no issues with anything amazingly. No compatibility issues, no hardware troubles, no gaming troubles etc.

Now I had all my files on C: that I wanted to keep (mp3's, videos, pics) along with the system files for a botched vista install. The install was functional and workign but I didn't want to format that drive again. I wanted to delete these cause it was wasting a lot of space. I proceeded to delete them only to find out I couldn't. For some reason I did NOT have permission to delete these files. Ok. So I go into permissions for the entire C: drive and grant myself full permissions on everything and let it do it it's thing. When it finished I tried to delete them for good and it STILL said I had no permissions... Ok. So I start going into these subfolders individually deleting whatever I could. This worked but it still wouldn't let me delete the parent directory.

I *think* it was after I tried deleting some stuff within the 'programs' folder on C: that the recycle bin took a crap on me. "recycle bin on C: is corrupted. Would you like to empty the recycle bin now?" yes | no... yes? error... error same one error, and it opened the bin. nothing was in it. I closed it, double clicked it again, error error 'recycle bin on C: corrupted.." blah blah.. Why is it trying to use C:'s recycle bin? GrRrRrR... I tried the steps here but they weren't the same thing. it wasn't a permissions issue so it seems.

All I was trying to do was delete 15gb's worth of system files left over from a vista file on my backup drive. I deleted the $Recycle.bin folder. I closed all the windows and went back to the folder and it had a recycle bin icon there so whatever I did to mess it up was fixed by simply right clicking the icon in the $recycle.bin folder and choosing "restore previous versions" option. I had 3 items listed under today's date. I tried each of these and none fixed the problem. I then tried to restore the item from yesterday, clicking yes yes to whatever dialog popped up, and booya! Now my recycle bin is working and not throwing up the errors anymore. The restore file or whatever it was was 599mb so I think it was some of the system files on drive C: that for some reason prevented my recycle bin on D: to fuction properly.

Now I need to find out how to get rid of those files properly. I don't know why it won't let me delete program files, windows, program files (x86), programs, or any of the other files that don't need to be on a non booting drive...

**sidney1st** · 07-03-2008

Hi and welcome to the Vista forums!

Just a question first:
What is the free space on D:\ and the space occupied by your datas on C:\ ?
If you have enough space to backup your datas on D:\, that would allow you to format C:\ and then copy back your datas on the C drive.

TheDD · 07-20-2008

Wow nice, I got this one file R4OOT.ws(3.47GB) stuck in the $Recycle.Bin for a while and it was definitely wasting my space. Well I just want to thank you for this guide