accidentally applied hidden folder attribute, subsequent errors

[nairbmik]

I was clicking around in my C drive because I was trying to find a folder that was hidden. I right clicked, click properties, selected the "hidden" folder attribute to the administrator folder, and clicked apply to all folders, subfolders, etc. I realized this was not the right thing because it just hid all the folders inside, so I undid it.

Afterwards, it kicked me off of skype and when I tried to log on again, it said my disk was full when it is obviously not and gave me the "disk i/o error"

In addition, I clicked firefox and it gave me a dialog box that said "Could not initialize the browser security component, etc etc and gave me another warning about my disk being full.

What did I do? Obviously my disk is not full but these two programs think it is full and is giving me error messages. Has this happened to anyone else before?

 

[bobtran]

Restore to previous restore point.

 

[ryo]

hello, did you have restore point??

 

[LuzTeTT]

I was clicking around in my C drive because I was trying to find a folder that was hidden. I right clicked, click properties, selected the "hidden" folder attribute to the administrator folder, and clicked apply to all folders, subfolders, etc. I realized this was not the right thing because it just hid all the folders inside, so I undid it.

Afterwards, it kicked me off of skype and when I tried to log on again, it said my disk was full when it is obviously not and gave me the "disk i/o error"

In addition, I clicked firefox and it gave me a dialog box that said "Could not initialize the browser security component, etc etc and gave me another warning about my disk being full.

What did I do? Obviously my disk is not full but these two programs think it is full and is giving me error messages. Has this happened to anyone else before?

Just right click your C: drive again and tick 'Hidden'. Hit apply and let it finish, then untick it and hit apply, waiting for it to finish again.
Reboot after that and you should be fine. Make sure compression is also disabled.

 

[nairbmik]

Yes, I have tried System Restore but it still gave me the same errors!

Edit: I did let it finish when I did and undid the hidden file attribute, still gives me errors.

It's weird, every time I open firefox, it gives me that error and then opens up the same tabs I had up before I did system restore

 

[ryo]

try this command http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html

 

[nairbmik]

Said nothing is wrong with my computer. :/

 

[LuzTeTT]

Yes, I have tried System Restore but it still gave me the same errors!

Edit: I did let it finish when I did and undid the hidden file attribute, still gives me errors.

It's weird, every time I open firefox, it gives me that error and then opens up the same tabs I had up before I did system restore

Do it again.

 

[Bill2]

Its possible Firefox's profile directory has messed up. See the article below and try the suggested fixes.

Could not initialize the browser security component

 

[nairbmik]

Yes, I have tried System Restore but it still gave me the same errors!

Edit: I did let it finish when I did and undid the hidden file attribute, still gives me errors.

It's weird, every time I open firefox, it gives me that error and then opens up the same tabs I had up before I did system restore

Do it again.

Still didn't work.

Its possible Firefox's profile directory has messed up. See the article below and try the suggested fixes.

Could not initialize the browser security component

Tried that as well, unchecked the read only box AND deleted the cert8 file, still the same error.

 

[LuzTeTT]

Yes, I have tried System Restore but it still gave me the same errors!

Edit: I did let it finish when I did and undid the hidden file attribute, still gives me errors.

It's weird, every time I open firefox, it gives me that error and then opens up the same tabs I had up before I did system restore

Do it again.

Still didn't work.

Its possible Firefox's profile directory has messed up. See the article below and try the suggested fixes.

Could not initialize the browser security component

Tried that as well, unchecked the read only box AND deleted the cert8 file, still the same error.

I would think the only thing left to do is re-install. There's definitely no reason why you can't find another fix, but you definitely confused Windows when that happened. System restore doesn't affect the file system - it's probably made the problem worse.

I've had this happen to me before and several restarts + making sure NOTHING was set to hidden was the solution for me. I think running System Restore has restored configuration settings that make Windows think certain critical system components are flagged correctly (whether they're invisible, write-protected, etc), and on the file system level they are actually opposite or incorrect.

Best bet is probably to re-install Windows. Have you tried simple things like uninstalling all of the affected software?