Can't empty recycle bin as disconnected external hard drive

10_66

I'm not a techie, so any answers in lay man's terms, please . Have just bought an external hard drive on which to back up my documents etc. Saved latest folders, and deleted old folders, which appeared in my recycle bin. Went into the recycle bin to empty it, and whilst doing this I disconnected the external hard drive (couldn't see why I shouldn't as the file was no longer showing on that and was appearing in the recycle bin). Then had that horrible microsoft "bump" noise, and a warning came up telling me the recycle bin couldn't be emptied as the files/folders were corrupted. I can now see that this must have been because I disconnected the external hard drive whilst the recycle bin was being emptied, but it didn't occur to me that the external hard drive would need to be connected in order to empty the recycle bin.

Is there any way I can empty my bin now? If I tried to restore the folder with its files to the external hard drive, would that just cause more problems? I'm stumped (which isn't hard for me when dealing with techie stuff!).



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marms

Every drive has it's own recycle bin but it's a hidden folder which is why you don't see it, if you plug the external drive back in you should be able to empty the recycle bin. If you still can't empty the recycle bin you'll have to restart windows which should sort it.

10_66

marms wrote: »

Every drive has it's own recycle bin but it's a hidden folder which is why you don't see it, if you plug the external drive back in you should be able to empty the recycle bin. If you still can't empty the recycle bin you'll have to restart windows which should sort it.

I've done both of the two things you suggest above, and I still can't empty the recycle bin. Still getting "the file or directory is corrupted and unreadable"

marms

Plug in the external drive, once it appears in My Computer right click on it and choose properties, in the drive properties window select the Tools tab and use the option to check the drive for errors.

10_66

marms wrote: »

Plug in the external drive, once it appears in My Computer right click on it and choose properties, in the drive properties window select the Tools tab and use the option to check the drive for errors.

What option should I select, the "automatically fix file system errors" or "scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors"?

espresso

10_66 wrote: »

I'm not a techie, so any answers in lay man's terms, please . Have just bought an external hard drive on which to back up my documents etc. Saved latest folders, and deleted old folders, which appeared in my recycle bin. Went into the recycle bin to empty it, and whilst doing this I disconnected the external hard drive (couldn't see why I shouldn't...........

There is little point backing up your files etc. if you then just unplug the external drive without following the correct procedure see here.

You should only disconnect when you are instructed that it is safe to do so! Forget the recycle bin - can you access the files that you have backed up?

robmar0se

When you disconnect an external drive you are not supposed to just disconnect. When connected you should see on icon on the bottom right of the taskbar (sometimes need to expand to see all items) - looks like a grey box with a green tick, which when you left click on it might say "safely remove hardware", if you then click on the drive letter indicated it will say "device cannot not be stopped" if its busy, otherwise it will say "safe to remove hardware".

10_66

espresso wrote: »

...can you access the files that you have backed up?

I've tried opening some of them, and they seem to be opening.

10_66

robmar0se wrote: »

When you disconnect an external drive you are not supposed to just disconnect. When connected you should see on icon on the bottom right of the taskbar (sometimes need to expand to see all items) - looks like a grey box with a green tick, which when you left click on it might say "safely remove hardware", if you then click on the drive letter indicated it will say "device cannot not be stopped" if its busy, otherwise it will say "safe to remove hardware".

Yes, thanks, I know that now, but what I need to know now is, is there anything I can do about it? Do I need to re-format the new hard drive in order to be able to empty the recycle bin. I realise that I will have to backup everything elsewhere again before doing so.

robmar0se

Do as Marms above suggests, if still not happy, then do a quick reformat. Or if you prefer, you can do the latter, and just back up yr folders again. Your call.

10_66

robmar0se wrote: »

Do as Marms above suggests, if still not happy, then do a quick reformat. Or if you prefer, you can do the latter, and just back up yr folders again. Your call.

Have done as marms suggested and it still has not fixed it, looks like I'll have to reformat it anyway.