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Clone drive EXCEPT one folder

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Hello,

I have a corrupt folder/file on my hard drive that I am unable to get rid of. I've tried deleting, chkdsk /r then deleting, deleting in command prompt, deleting in safe mode, moveonboot program, and file shredder. Everything still says it's a corrupt file and cannot be deleted.

So, is it possible to clone my entire drive except this file in order to finally be rid of it?

Thank you!

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There is a high chance that your file system is corrupted. You could create a bootable CD or use your Windows DVD and use command prompt from there. You should be able to erase that file then.

The problem is that if you clone or backup your disk, you will clone or backup the corrupted file system with it.

Did you try other disk recovery/repair software (something that uses a separate boot medium)?

If the partition where the file is is NOT the system partition, then you should simply move the other files, then reformat the partition.

Thank you for your reply! I was not able to delete the file via the Windows boot disc, but I was able to do it with a Knoppix Linux boot disc. In Knoppix, I was able to navigate to the corrupted folder and delete it with no issues. The folder was gone with I booted back into Windows. The only thing that worked, but at least it worked!!!

You have to get out of the NTFS file system to take care of a file problem like this. What you did is one apporach.

An alternative is to make a file with the same name but in a diff location -- it can even be an empty file made with notepad.exe; do a trueimage "My Data" backup of that new file. The do a trueimage restore of the file setting the option to restore to a diff location and to overwrite existing file. Restore the file. It will overwrite the filw with the offensive file system entry of the original file and you should be back in business.