Windows 7: 57gb in external's hidden Recycle Bin?

Dwarf · 04 Sep 2010

What I would like to know is this: I have deleted all my icons off the desktop and binned them. Now, I can understand why they appear in the recycle bin on my computer itself, but why should they appear in the bin on my external drive? Surely, it would make sense for the bin contents to reflect what has been placed in there directly, in other words the bin on a particular drive should only contain files that have been deleted from that particular drive.

SledgeDG · 04 Sep 2010

Dwarf: bear with me, I might have worded s/th wrong. I didn't mean to imply that files deleted from your desktop are copied into the recycling bin of your external drive. In fact it shows there only as some form of shortcut (the properties say Origin: Desktop) which leads me to believe that the whole rescue bin structure is somehow connected via junctions/similar constructs.(As I understand it, it's much like symbolic links under Unix)

-DG

Dwarf · 04 Sep 2010

That would appear to be the case. I have just emptied the bin on my external drive (I only had a single object in it that originated on the external drive) and everything in it was deleted, irrespective of which drive the object originated from.

Barman58 · 04 Sep 2010

Quote: Originally Posted by gregrocker

When I click on the External HD single hidden $RECYCLE.BIN, it opens a folder with two Recycle Bins both of which have a default setting limiting size. Strange how this limit apparently didn't work before, and stranger still why there are two Recycle Bins with exact same settings/location:

Greg,

Do you access this drive from two systems by any chance? if you do then two identical $recycle bins would make some sort of sense.

gregrocker · 04 Sep 2010

Nigel I think you've got it: Both bins in the sub-folder are dated/timestamped when I was plugging external into separate computers.

Any ideas as to why the default size limit wasn't enforced?

Barman58 · 04 Sep 2010

Quote: Originally Posted by gregrocker

Nigel, I think you've got it. Both bins in the sub-folder are dated/timestamped when I was plugging external into separate computers.

Any ideas as to why the default size limit wasn't enforced?

Not really unless some software you were using did something it shouldn't - I have to assume that the system should be designed to have multiple recycle bins - on a portable drive anyway, but perhaps it's an undisclosed feature caused by the multiple bins

.

would be interesting to see how internal drives are treated on systems, when accessed by two operating systems - I seem to remember seeing multiple nested recycle bins on data drives when I had multiple OS's running during the Beta program

thehappyman · 04 Sep 2010

Quote: Originally Posted by Dwarf

What I would like to know is this: I have deleted all my icons off the desktop and binned them. Now, I can understand why they appear in the recycle bin on my computer itself, but why should they appear in the bin on my external drive? Surely, it would make sense for the bin contents to reflect what has been placed in there directly, in other words the bin on a particular drive should only contain files that have been deleted from that particular drive.

If you cant find ANY other way to get rid of the junk in this recycle bin, copy all the data on that disk to another drive (cant take that long), REFORMAT the offending drive, then move the data back again.

Windows 7: 57gb in external's hidden Recycle Bin?

57gb in external's hidden Recycle Bin? problems?