Vista - How can I delete folders which Vista says I don't have rights for?

I have several folders on one of my drives which I cannot delete.
Vista responds that I don't have permission, yet I am logged in as the
administrator with full rights.

1. Folders are not in use.
2. They are on an external 750GB USB-2 based drive (NTFS).
3. I also tried to delete them from an XP based system to no avail.

How can I get rid of these folders? There must be a simple way to do
this without having to mess with the permissions. After all, I am,
supposed to have "god rights". That is, I am the administrator of my
home system with full RWMD rights.

Computers used:
Main computer: Vista Business SP1 (x32)
Laptop: XP Home SP3 (x32)

______________________

The Traveller
Carlsbad, California

On Mon, 20 Apr 2009 22:00:11 -0700, The Traveller
<The_Traveller@xxxxxx> wrote:

Try to first take ownership of the file as describes here:-

Take Ownership of file

then try deleting again

--
----------------
Stubbo of Oz
----------------

"The Traveller" <The_Traveller@xxxxxx> �ообщил/�ообщила в ново�т�х
�ледующее: news:g5kqu459sk9rk2vbu8129m1b6kla4ea453@xxxxxx1. Are those folders encrypted?
2. Who is their owner?

On Mon, 20 Apr 2009 22:00:11 -0700, The Traveller
<The_Traveller@xxxxxx> wrote:
Try deleting in safe mode ?

On Mon, 20 Apr 2009 22:00:11 -0700, The Traveller wrote:
Are you *the* administrator or *an* administrator?

Unfortunately, Microsoft chose confusing names for these related but not
identical concepts...

--
Gene E. Bloch letters0x40blochg0x2Ecom

Close a handle, as the web site you refer to says.

CloseHandle

Closes an open object handle.


BOOL CloseHandle(
HANDLE hObject
);

Parameters
hObject
[in] A handle to an open object. This parameter can be a pseudo handle or
INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE.
Return Value
If the function succeeds, the return value is nonzero.

If the function fails, the return value is zero. To get extended error
information, call GetLastError.

If the application is running under a debugger, the function will throw an
exception if it receives either a handle value that is not valid or a
pseudo-handle value. This can happen if you close a handle twice, or if you
call CloseHandle on a handle returned by the FindFirstFile function.

Remarks
The CloseHandle function closes handles to the following objects:



Access token
Communications device
Console input
Console screen buffer
Event
File
File mapping
Job
Mailslot
Memory resource notification
Mutex
Named pipe
Pipe
Process
Semaphore
Socket
Thread
Transaction
Waitable timer

CloseHandle invalidates the specified object handle, decrements the object's
handle count, and performs object retention checks. After the last handle to
an object is closed, the object is removed from the system.

Closing a thread handle does not terminate the associated thread. To remove
a thread object, you must terminate the thread, then close all handles to
the thread.

Use CloseHandle to close handles returned by calls to the CreateFile
function. Use FindClose to close handles returned by calls to FindFirstFile.

Transacted Operations

If a handle is transacted, all handles bound to a transaction should be
closed before the transaction is committed. An application must close a
transacted handle opened with FILE_FLAG_DELETE_ON_CLOSE before committing
the transaction in order for the delete operation to occur.


Example Code
For an example, see Closing Files.


"The Traveller" <The_Traveller@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ugftu4t48rou6531cav4forfrtfmsut0rq@xxxxxx

On Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:00:49 -0700, The Traveller wrote:
<SNIP>
One way to tell: If in the control panel for User Accounts, the account has
the *name* "The Traveller" and under that the label in small type says
"Administrator", it is an account of *type* administrator, that is, an
account with slightly limited administrator privileges. If it has the
*name* "Administrator" it is *the* administrator account.

In the above panel, if you click on Change your account type, the
distinction will be clearer, I think - but be careful - that panel defaults
to "Standard user", so be sure to Cancel out :-)

And if you investigate as above and find out that you were right and I was
wrong, I won't actually be surprised (either way, for that matter). But if
I am wrong, the mystery is a bit deeper (well, to me, at least).

For emphasis: there is only one *full* administrator account, and it is
named Administrator. There can be a number of accounts of type
administrator, but with other user names and without full privileges.

Finally, run the command) "net user administrator /active:yes" (no quotes)
from an elevated cmd prompt. It will let you log on as *the* administrator;
naturally, it will be unneeded if I am wrong in my assumptions. Change
"yes" to "no" to reverse it later.

<SNIP>

--
Gene E. Bloch letters0x40blochg0x2Ecom

On Wed, 22 Apr 2009 20:09:42 -0700, "Gene E. Bloch"
<not-me@xxxxxx> wrote:

Thanks for the information. Under "make changes to your user account".
I see myself as <name> administrator, which means that I am considered
a slightly less than full administrator. When I select Manage
Accounts, I now see the other "Administrator" account. So it seems
that I am logged in as the "small" administrator after all.

One always learns ;-)


______________________

The Traveller
Carlsbad, California

On Thu, 23 Apr 2009 00:07:26 -0700, The Traveller wrote:
Yep! I assure you that I didn't start out knowing the above.

My path to there was long and tortuous, and involved help from more than
one source. It's nice to be able to pay forward on occasion :-)

--
Gene E. Bloch letters0x40blochg0x2Ecom

This tutorial may be of some help to you:
Take Ownership of file