$Recycle.Bin

Hello theHawk80,maybe this will helps you a little.
$RECYCLE.BIN Folder

theHawk80 said:

Hey everyone, glad to be here, and thanks very much for reading. I recently ticked my 'show hidden files and folders' button and found something I am not to fond of. My HP laptop, with Win 7 Home Premium has a folder in the C: drive called "$Recycle.Bin" It contains 951 MB of info in 37 folders. I cannot get my recovery software (Iolo System Recovery) to find these 'deleted' files. I click on the folder, and when it opens it shows me nothing. Well, that is a LOT of nothing. How do I access these files? Any suggestions on how to get them visable? What can be done about it? Thanks in advance for any and all answers and help. Regards

Each hard disk on your computer will contain a $RECYCLE.BIN folder to which files will be moved when you delete them. Generally speaking, the "Recycle Bin" icon on your desktop is a collection of and access point to all the "deleted" files and folders contained within $RECYCLE.BIN.

You should not be accessing $RECYCLE.BIN directly

run ccleaner and ,it should clear these files/ folders.
have a look at this thread for more info.

Hello theHawk80, and welcome to Seven Forums.

If you wanted to delete files, you should do so from within the actual Recyle Bin, and not the $RECYCLE.BIN folder.

If you are unable to view or delete files from within the Recycle Bin, then this will show you how to fix it so that you will be able to afterwards.

Recycle Bin Corrupted - Cannot Delete File or Folder - Vista Forums

Hope this may help some,
Shawn

theHawk80 said:

Thank you StalkeR, but alas, there is nothing on that thread that tells me how to access files there, and how to be rid of them. The advice from Microsoft guys is 'not to delete the files' Yeah, okay thanks. I want to see them, see what they are, then delete them if I so choose. Thanks again StalkeR, hope some other friends can chime in with a solution as well. Regards

In effect, they are already deleted. The $ symbol is just a way of marking the file or folder as deleted so Windows knows it's ok to write something new there. Deleting a file doesn't actually remove anything, it's just a notification to treat the area of the hard drive where the file was located as free space - which is what the $ symbol does in this case.

This is one reason why the DOD, lots of businesses, and anyone else interested in security run multiple passes of file disc-overwriting tools to make sure their data is really REALLY gone when they delete it.