I had this problem sporadically until the last round of Vista updates.
It is an ownership problem of some sort, but I cannot change the ownership
to fix it. Everything looks correct as far as permissions and ownership. If
I change the ownership, or permissions, the next time I look, they are back
where they were.
In the "old" days with DOS, you could not delete a directory if there were
any files in the directory. That is what this problem looks like, but it
is not caused by all files, only certain ones. If I delete the files in the
folder, then I can delete the folder.
When I encounter the problem, if I want to delete a folder, or rename
a folder, the folder has to be empty before I am allowed to do those
things. This is an intermittent problem, and seems to be associated with
folders that I have copied from/to other hard drives.
I have, on one occasion, tracked it down to one particular
file in a folder. That file looked fine, but if it was in the folder, I
could not
delete the folder. I could make a copy of the offending file, put it in a
folder, and that folder could be deleted. So, it appears to be a file
ownership problem, but if I own the thing, what is Vista thinking?
It is as if there is a "super owner" that sometimes takes ownership of
a file and won't let its folder be deleted. I have no idea how that is
possible.
Like I said, I have not seen the problem since the last batch of updates.
"Rick Rogers" <rick@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:eGiOXshSIHA.536@xxxxxx
> Hi,
>
> You're probably right in your suspicions. Try taking ownership of the
> folder from the security tab of the folder's properties. When you do, make
> sure you also enable the line for this change to propagate to all
> subcontainers and objects. If you don't, then you may not have the
> appropriate security level to delete something within the folder, and be
> blocked from completing that function.
>
> --
> Best of Luck,
>
> Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
> http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
> Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
> My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com
>
> <nowbegreat@xxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:c14dc207-29f4-41d7-ad4d-ee2d672046bd@xxxxxx
>>I have an MSS 200 Gb that works fine with all Windows XP SP2
>> computers. My new Vista Ultimate PC recognizes, reads, writes, copies,
>> deletes files in the MSS no problem, except I cannot delete any
>> folders in the drive unless they are empty first. What gives?
>>
>> Also, this is a public folder (not password protected--never has been--
>> even under XP). Reading through Maxtor Knowledgebase, I see that
>> Maxtor MSS drives don't work properly under Vista if folders are
>> password protected... so that's not it.
>>
>> I get the feeling this has to do with permissions somehow... Any help
>> would be greatly appreciated. /pg.
>> >