"Access Denied" When You Delete Folders from a Mounted Drive

ID: Q243514

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server
Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
Microsoft Windows 2000 Server

SYMPTOMS

When you try to delete folders that are stored on a mounted drive and send them to the Recycle Bin, you may receive the following error message:

Cannot delete Foldername: Access is denied. The source file may be in use.

CAUSE

This behavior occurs because the Recycle Bin does not understand mounted volumes. For example, assume that the following drive layout is in use:

C: -- 1-gigabyte (GB) drive using the NTFS file system
C:\Host-dir -- The mount point for a separate 9-GB drive

When you try to delete a folder with the path C:\Host-dir\Mydir, Windows Explorer interprets the folder as being on drive C and tries unsuccessfully to place it in the Recycle Bin on drive C.

RESOLUTION

To work around this issue, use either of the following methods:

When you delete the files or folders by using Windows Explorer, use the SHIFT+DELETE key combination. This bypasses the Recycle Bin.

Open a command prompt windows and use the rd /s /q command to delete the files or folders.

NOTE: Both of these methods permanently delete the data. You cannot recover the data unless you have a current backup.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article.

Additional query words:

Keywords : kberrmsg kbui
Version : WINDOWS:2000
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbprb