Back in the days when I owned the fastest computer around [true 16bit and at least 15MHz] I found myself facing the "the damn file can't be deleted!!!" problem.
And the normal "wildcard" solution didn't work. So I pulled down my DOS manual [such things did once exist], and pulled up some of what I'd learned somewhere at sometime, and I FINALLY managed to delete the files. And I didn't use a disk editor because I didn't have one. I used the wonderful "?" and it worked! "HUH??" you might say, "what do you mean you used '?'?" File name BEO .123 The blank after BEO is unknown character. The command is therefore DEL BEO?.123 If that doesn't work, add question marks one at a time, and keep trying DEL BEO??.123 DEL BEO???.123 DEL BEO????.123 DEL BEO?????.123 Unlike the '*' wildcard, the '?' is a "one place at a time" wildcard. If you have two files -- BEO1.123 and BEO15.123, BEO?.123 will refer only to the first one. I honestly cannot remember if BEO??.123 would refer to both files, but I think not. It's been a looooooooooooooong time since I had to use that trick. I'd honestly forgotten about it until I saw the subject line show up on the list. <G> I imagine the the use of '?' could come in handy in some complex batch files ... I hope I remember it should I need to write some in the future. <G> ==== On Thu, 27 Jun 2002 10:22:14 +0100, Joerg Dietze wrote: > Hi folks, > On Wed, 26 Jun 2002 10:39:10 -0500, Samuel W. Heywood wrote: > <snip> >>> You probably know this already, but just in case you don't, >>> oddball files can sometimes be deleted by using wildcards >>> like B*.INS or BEOS*.* . >> Thanks. I had of course already tried that. It didn't work! > <snip> > here is my way to deal with "undeletable" files: > Run a disk editor of Your choice and overwrite the first letter of the > name of the file with the character 229 in the directory. You can enter it > by holding ALT-key and hitting 229 at numeric keypad (DOS will do the > same when deleting a file). After leaving the editor, chkdsk or similiar > will report a lost cluster chain. Just delete this and the undeletable > file is gone to byte heaven. > HTH Joerg > -- Arachne V1.70, NON-COMMERCIAL copy, http://arachne.cz/ -- Arachne V1.70;rev.3, NON-COMMERCIAL copy, http://arachne.cz/
