Cannot delete old backup files
Windows XP. Backup drive is an internal 2T NTFS. Had Acronis since 2006. Just upgraded (?) to 2012. ATI 2012 changed all of the old backup files to a folder structure and added a bunch of backup tasks. These tasks I was able to remove. It said it was deleting all of the old files. It lied.
What I cannot do is remove these old legacy backups. The folder looks like this: (The dots represent levels)
[-]Backups (D:)
.[-]111126 MyBackup.tib
..[-]111126 MyBackup
...C:
....[+] (a list of files that correspond to those on my root)
No matter what level I highlight with the mouse, when I hit Delete nothing happens.
There are a bunch of these folders, each one over 117Gig.
[-]Backups (D:)
.[-]111126 MyBackup.tib
..[-]111126 MyBackup
...C:
....[+] (a list of files that correspond to those on my root)
Are you double clicking on 111126 MyBackup.tib to see the other levels? if yes, you are exploring a TIB file with Windows explorer and you can't delete files or backups that way.
When you install 2012, it "discovers" all the existing TIB files. You have to let it run for a long while (in particular if you have a lot of ZIP files). Once the discover is finished, you can remove the backups you don't want from the list of backups. A backup doesn't need to be in the list to be useful.
Pat L, no I click on the disk icon to see a list of files. I then single-click on the tib file name.
Windows Explorer says it cannot delete the tib as it is being used by another person or program.
Windows Task Manager does not show any applications or processes that appear to be ATI related.
Maybe I should un-install ATI then try to delete the backups.
Maybe I should re-format my D: drive (the backup drive) using XP. That'll larn it.
I wouldn't go for a reformant until I tried these things first. Besides, you could stop or disable all the acronis services and programs and if they were what was holding the files open, you'd be able to delete them then (you could use msconfig.exe to do this)
But more likely the file indexer is holding them. You can try to use unlocker.exe (it's free) to see if any processes are holding it open. If so you can unlock the file (close the file handle) or even force a delete, which requires a reboot). It could also be corrupted ntfs metadata that is keeping the file from being deleted in the ntfs.
The most certain way I know to delete "undeleteable: files is to make a file with the same name (use notepad or whatever), back it up with ati, the restore it to the same location as the original problem file. This forces the file system to rewrite the metadata. then you can delete it.
IF ntfs metadata was corrupted, then it's a good idea to run chkdsk /r afterwards to clear up any bad sectors that might have caused the metadata to become corrupted.
Great tip, Scott, unlocker did the trick. I had to go down the list one by one (too lazy to find an alternative) but it got them all. Now I can let ATI 2012 do its thing for a while.
Thanks.
I hope the back-room boys at Acronis can figure out why ATI 2012 failed to unlock those files.
I could see no reason why it restructured them in the first place. Trying to be too clever, I guess.
It might not have been ati that locked up the files. Did Unlocker show you what program was hodling them open?
No, it did not. But as no other program had touched them and ATI had messed with them, I made that assumption.
Thanks again for you help, Scott.
at a minimum cidaemon.exe has probably been messing with them -- that's part of windows.
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