External HDD recycle bin corrupted (pics)

I keep getting this message when I try to empty my recycle bin on my desktop. It says my external HDD's recycle bin is corrupted and then it needs admin privileges to empty it, but when I click continue it just loops back to saying it's unable to empty it. Any thoughts? Thanks!

Hello Thready,

You can try the method in the tutorial below to hopefully fix this.

You'll use the command below when you get to step 4 for the "L" drive.

rd /s /q L:\$Recycle.bin

Brink said:

Hello Thready,

You can try the method in the tutorial below to hopefully fix this.

You'll use the command below when you get to step 4 for the "L" drive.

rd /s /q L:\$Recycle.bin

Fix Corrupted Recycle Bin in Windows

How to Fix Corrupted Recycle Bin in Windows

www.tenforums.com

Click to expand...

Thanks for the fix. Unfortunately it gave me this message. I opened it as admin too but still... I did a sfc scannow and this is what it found.

If you don't have too much on the "L" drive or have another drive to temporarily copy all the files from "L" to, you could format the "L" drive to clear this error.

Brink said:

If you don't have too much on the "L" drive or have another drive to temporarily copy all the files from "L" to, you could format the "L" drive to clear this error.

Click to expand...

I just edited my first reply to you because I ran a scannow and I have the screenshot of what it showed me. The drive is full of my backup but it's one of many backups so if I have to start fresh I can, I would just need to step away from my PC for about an hour.

The SFC scan would be unrelated to the "L" drive since SFC only affects system files on the "C" OS drive.

It would appear this is a access permissions issue possibly due to if the external drive was originally formatted/used on a different computer without access rights on this one.

You could try taking ownership and changing permissions of the drive, but this would be very involved and may not work considering the backups. Formatting the drive is the easiest way to clear and gain permissions if there's no issue of copying the backups back afterwards.

I've had this exact problem, you swapped the drive to another PC or reinstalled Windows -- and didn't empty the Recycle Bin beforehand.

Try this as Administrator:

garlin said:

I've had this exact problem, you swapped the drive to another PC or reinstalled Windows -- and didn't empty the Recycle Bin beforehand.

Try this as Administrator:

Code:

takeown /f "L:\$Recycle.bin" /r /d y
icacls "L:\$Recycle.bin" /grant EVERYONE:(OI)(CI)(F) /t
attrib -r -s -h "L:\$Recycle.bin" /s /d
rmdir /s /q "L:\$Recycle.bin"

Click to expand...

Better to substitute EVERYONE with *S-1-1-0 in your code to make it compatible with non English installations of Windows.