Moving directory tree doesn't delete folders?

I've been using Windows 7 for quite some time now (though admittedly I'm only just getting around to understanding the whole Libraries thing - I always keep my stuff on a separate HD from my OS/programs, and have only recently realized that Libraries are not constrained the way the XP My Documents system was.)

Anyway, I have occasionally had a minor issue with moving folders - particular those with subfolders that contain the actual files. When I move a folder, I generally want it gone from where it currently is (otherwise I'd copy). However, I find Windows Explorer, or perhaps TeraCopy, sometimes seems to forget to delete the directory tree after having created a duplicate directory tree at the target and moving the files over. It's a bizarre and totally minor problem, though it does get tiresome if I fail to notice it for a while and leave extraneous directory trees sitting around. (I'm a bit of a control freak; I like my files and folders to be neatly and categorically sorted, so empty folders are anathema to me). It's consistent when it happens, which suggests to me that I'm somehow changing a setting, but I honestly have no idea what it is. (A reformat makes it disappear for a while, but, while I do feel those are a necessary component of computer maintenance every year or so, it's a rather extreme measure for such a minor problem.)

Any idea what my computer is doing, or rather, how I can make it stop? I've yet to find a place in folder settings or TeraCopy's preferences that has anything to do with moving folders.

It's not part of a library, though I didn't know about that behavior. My comment on libraries was more to illustrate that my skillset is still primarily that of an XP user, despite having used 7 for a while.

The "phantom copies" are easily deleted, (though I generally check the root directory's properties to ensure the files are actually gone, first - that's the main reason it's annoying). I haven't run checkdisk, since it's not having major issues - as you said, things being undeletable for no reason can be problematic, but that isn't the case, here.

I find it unlikely that TeraCopy is causing this, since it's all happening within a drive. TeraCopy only triggers if it has to actually write data - copying within a drive or copying/moving to a different drive. Moving files around within a drive (or rather, partition) simply requires a quick change to the MFT. (It opens a different transfer window, so it's obvious when it's in use and when it's not.) However, I felt it might be worth mentioning - I know from being on the other side that bug reports that only give you half the information are very hard to work with - too much info is better than too little.

And of course, now that I've actually mentioned the problem, I don't seem to be able to make it happen again, even moving things back to where they were when this occurred earlier and repeating the exact same move command. Yay for intermittant problems.

I've only really noticed it on one disk/partition (in my computer, it's the same thing - unlike the FAT systems, NTFS doesn't really have any technical reason to limit partition sizes, and I have 4 hard drives (plus an external for backup purposes), so I don't need to partition based on organizational needs, either). The disk in question is where a large percentage of my high traffic data goes (music, documents, images - basically all non-video data), so it's where I tend to do the most organizing. I don't recall observing it on the video, os/programs or download heap drives, but I don't tinker with the organization on those drives anywhere near as much, either.

It only happens during move operations, and I believe specifically on the same disk (that said, with my organizational setup, I rarely feel the need to move things off of the drive they're on (with the exception of the heap of random downloads), so I again can't be sure.) Delete operations work normally, and copy doesn't screw with the source directory (or if it does on your computer, your issue trumps mine).

It seems to run in spurts. Yesterday it was happening every time I moved a directory with subfolders (meaning most of what I was doing) in a reorganization project - today, I couldn't make it happen even by recreating the same circumstances.

So an MFT problem seems like a logical possibility to me as well.

One other point - I've noticed that some of these files have somehow gotten themselves labelled read only (largely irrelevant as they're mp3s and my only musical skill is listening). Any possibility that could cause such oddities? I have to admit, I've never really gotten into how Windows handles permissions like that - unlike Linux (which I've tinkered with in the past but always find a bit high maintenance for regular use), permissions generally don't effect the end user.

That said, my computer's been a bit laggardly of late, so I was already planning to do a reformat. Given the MFT hypothesis actually has a logical basis, I might as well give this drive a reformat as well. It does mean I have to copy about 700 gigs of data off of it for the time being, but I can live with that. File operations like that are exactly why I have TeraCopy - it handles errors much more gracefully than Windows...though again, I'm drawing primarily on my XP experience, since I was already reliant on TC by the time I switched to Seven.

My guess is that it was set by the uploader. Music and video file formats usually imply it's not meant for editing, but I guess some people want to be extra sure to point it out.

Left mouse button - drag and drop.
The old directory tree remains behind, but with no files left; in the place I move things to, the directory tree and files exist with correct contents
Yes, the tooltip says "move to <destination>"

I have not tried cut and paste (it's even more cumbersome than deleting the empty directory tree after moving files). Unfortunately, as MSchild and I discussed above, the problem is intermittent. I shall try cutting and pasting next time I encounter the issue and report the results.