[ale] "undeleteable" file

Michael D. Hirsch mhirsch at nubridges.com
Wed Sep 1 11:07:33 EDT 2004


On Wednesday 01 September 2004 10:51 am, Mike Panetta wrote:
> Why fall back to a GUI (that may not even be available, think
> resuce disk) when ls -b works just fine?

Because it doesn't do what I want.  If I have a file named '*' then ls -b will 
report it as named '*'.  So when I remove it with 'rm *' I end up in trouble.

Yes, there are ways to prevent the trouble from happening, but then I have to 
remember them.

OTOH, a GUI does not have to worry about a shell globbing the filenames--or 
maybe it does but the authors have already worked around this problem.

There are times that you don't have a GUI available.  If you can boot a CD 
then you should.  Knoppix has one.  If you have emacs available, it has one 
even in text mode.

Michael

> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Michael D. Hirsch" <mhirsch at nubridges.com>
> Sent: Sep 1, 2004 10:47 AM
> To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts <ale at ale.org>
> Subject: Re: [ale] "undeleteable" file
>
> On Wednesday 01 September 2004 10:22 am, Preston Boyington wrote:
> > I have a file/folder on my usb drive that is corrupt.  In the file name
> > there are squares/numbers/?/+ and other such junk.  I believe that when
> > my friend was using the drive he unplugged it while a transfer was in
> > progress or maybe his XP machine locked it up.
> >
> > My problem is this: I can't delete the file from Windows or Linux.  I
> > booted to a Knoppix disk that I had and it barfed when I tried to delete
> > the file (gave me a similar error message as Windows, actually).  What is
> > the best way to remove this file from the drive?  Worst case I will
> > remove all my good information and format it (8GB), but was hoping for a
> > better way in case this should happen again.
>
> Have you fscked the drive?  It sounds like it might be slightly corrupt.
>
> Next, try using a good gui tool to delete the file.  There are too many
> ways to screw up trying to delete a file with funny characters in its name
> from the command line.  More gui tools that have been around for a while
> will avoid those pitfalls.
>
> Michael
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale



More information about the Ale mailing list