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RECYCLER Folder?


xmf

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After some research it seems this folder is supposed to be hidden, but it is visible and located in my user directory in "Documents and Settings".

I also read that this folder is the recycle bin, yet, although I recently emptied the Recycle Bin, RECYCLER has an exact copy of all my user files (Application Data, My Documents, etc.).

What is going on here? I'd like to delete this folder's contents.

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I'd be careful. There are a couple reasons this could show up, could be a virus or could be the hard drive was used in another system. I've seen Win7 do weird things with the folders on my old XP drive.

The folders in the root of Recycler should have GUIDs for names, and the files inside those could be anything. I say be careful because those folders you see in there could be pointers. Normally, Recycler folder should be in the root of the drive.

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I have a multi-boot setup: XP Pro w/SP3, XP Pro x64 w/SP2, Win7 32- and 64-bit and I have: Recycle Bin, Recycled, and Recycler.

I think that is happening because each of the operting systems is creating recycle bins in all of the partitions - including those of the other operating systems; resulting in these multiple "Recycle Bins". When I looked in each of them from within all of the OS's I did find multiple copies and/or strange files. I just learned to stop looking in the 'Recycle Bin' because I was not sure of what might be there and just empty it when it showed there was stuff in it.

If that guess is wrong then someone will make a comment correcting things.

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"Recycled" the part of "Recycle Bin" that exists in each individual FAT device, while "Recycler" is akin to it, but exists in NTFS devices only (and has subfolders for each individual user). The namespace object called "Recycle Bin" can be see as all "Recycled" and all "Recycler" subfolders joined together. This is so by design.

If you're logged in as Administrator, you'll see all the deleted files from every user, when opening the "Recycle Bin", while a normal user will only see his/her stuff. That's quite normal. BTW, are you using removable drives in more than one machine?

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I'm not multi-booting, and the only removable drive I've used is a small thumb-drive that has been plugged into one other computer.

There is only one user account on my system, I don't know if it has administrator status.

Looking at my user folder in "Documents and Settings", the RECYCLER folder there contains a folder starting in "S-1-5-21". Here is the folder tree within:

-Dd5

--Programs

---Startup (apparently empty)

-Dd12

--Application Data

--Docs

--Firefox

--Local Settings

--My Documents

--Start Menu

The "My Documents" folder here is fairly in-tact but outdated. Has some old files (that I no longer have) and doesn't have some new files. Some of the files that are there I still have in the real "My Documents".

Edited by xmf
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All my drives/partitions are NTFS so I'm not sure of the applicability of the comments above.

I checked my XP installations and there are no RECYCLER, Recycle Bin, or Recycled folder under \Documenst and Settings

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That's the other thing - this folder is supposed to be hidden but on my system it's not.

I just remembered that when I was recently setting up a sync program I deleted the mirrored version of "My Documents".

The sync itself involved copying "My Documents" to a separate partition on my hard drive.

Thanks

Edited by xmf
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Well are these folders very large or do you just want them to go away? You could just hide them so that you can't see them. You can do this with Attrib and set them to +A +H and you won't be able to see them again unless you uncheck the Hide Protected System Files box in Folder Options.

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Thanks for the reply - cool avatar.

The files are quite large and I'm looking to get my install as small as possible for backup image purposes (to fit on a usb).

(I also would really like to know why this folder isn't hidden and why these files weren't deleted)

Well are these folders very large or do you just want them to go away? You could just hide them so that you can't see them. You can do this with Attrib and set them to +A +H and you won't be able to see them again unless you uncheck the Hide Protected System Files box in Folder Options.

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Boot from a linux live CD (like grml, RIP or tinhat) and delete all RECYCLER and RECYCLED folders that you find while on linux *and* all of their contents. Then boot to Windows again, and it will recreate them as needed, brand-new and empty. No need to worry, it simply works!

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  • 3 months later...

Wow did I ever have fun with the recycler folder files. I happened to look in a folder that my antivirus program told me had legal software that could be used to take over my computer. I found files going back to 1996 I kid you not. There was nearly 4 gig of stuff in there. It wasn't on a disk that had ever had an OS on it that I know of. It certainly wasn't a drive that was that old. I could not figure how files that old could still be floating around on my computer. So being the idjit jump in with both feet kinda guy I am I calmly deleted every file in a sub-folder of the recycler folder. I wanted to make sure no pointers were still pointing there from my recycle bin so I deleted everything in there too. Then my computer hung up trying to empty the recycle bin. Then I had to reboot. Then my hard drive totally disappeared from the computer. I mean it didn't even show up in the disk management section of the administrative tools / computer management section. Nothing I did would bring back that disk. Not only that but 2 other drives also disappeared at the same time. I went from 5 hard drives to 2. I tried all the simple stuff like rebooting without the drives hooked up then rebooting again with one at a time hooked back up. Nothing. I went to system restore and it told me all changes done to my hard drives would be lost since they were removed from the system backup facility. Now how do I undo that. After an hour of banging my head on my computer and trying every sane option I could think of I went ahead with the system restore. What's the worst that could happen? Yeah right. But I had my really important files backed up to a USB drive that was turned off so I felt fairly safe. I still didn't want a 2 week battle to restore everything though. So half way through my system restore the computer hangs up. Sheesh what next. More head banging first. Then I rebooted the computer with no hard drives hooked up but my OS drive. It finally came back online and it even told me my system restore had finished. It also told me it had found new hardware and was installing the drivers. Hmmm... My hard drives weren't even connected. How did that happen? So I let it reboot then I shut it down and hook my drives back up and they were actually back again only with different drive letters. Also I had recently migrated my OS and partitions to a new drive because my old one was getting iffy. The system restore was trying to totally rebuild that drive from who knows where? It had a lot of system files back on that drive and it was totally blank when this all started. Ah computers. You gotta hate 'em.

The moral of the story - if it ain't broke don't fix it. I have 2 terrabytes of space plus on my computer. Why worry about a few gig here and there? Trust me I won't be doing that again in the near future. I still can't figure why it had files dating back to 1996. That's just crazy. I've been through countless hard drives since then. Heck I was using Win 3.1 in 1996. I'm always a slow adapter of new OS's. I'm still running XP for example. How in the heck it kept those files from that far back through at least half a dozen hard drive swaps and several OS changes I just have no clue. Computers. You hate them but you hate them too. Too bad they're so dang useful. I almost used mine for target practice today.

I'll stop venting now. Anyone else have a problem? I've actually been a computer trouble shooter since the mid-90's. I cut my teeth on an original Mac. I've built computers, sold computers, repaired computers, taught computer classes, used computers for several business ventures and made a lot of money with them over the years. I had one contract for 10 years to do desktop publishing. You young guys won't remember what that is most likely. It was a long while back.

Edited by KingGhidora
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  • 3 months later...

My 2 cents:

1st let me say this advice is for XP ONLY, I don't know about Win 7, Vista, etc...

In XP, as mentioned previously, Recycler should be in root (example: C:) of drive, if it is elsewhere, I would delete it.

If the one in question is large and emptying recycle bin by using the icon on desktop DOESN'T change its size, then it's obviously a broken Recycler and can be deleted. Could be it was a bin added by software such as security, system cleanup utility, etc... which was deleted but bin wasn't removed, especially applies if have done a system restore/repair.

As I said, if test mentioned doesn't alter size and/or it's NOT in root of drive, DELETE IT.

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