how do i erase corrupted empty files that were downloaded?

Question

roomate downloads from kazaa all the time and there are two files that when downloaded stored as 0 size with a porn title. you can highlight and locate but cant erase. how can i erase these?

Answer 1

They are probably unerasable because the long filename is too long or has illegal characters in it, so Windows can't handle the file - it can't rename, delete or move it, in other words.

If the file system is FAT32, you can use a DOS 6.2 floppy to boot the machine in DOS and that will usually allow you to erase the files, since DOS doesn't use long file names primarily.

If the file system is NTFS, you will probably have to find a little Unix/Linux utility which allows you to boot with a small version of Linux (which can read NTFS) and delete them that way.

This article describes how to get rid of such files (in this case, a Trojan, but it applies to all files with illegal characters) using a utility called Delete FXP. I haven't had occasion to try it but PC Answers is a reliable source:
http://www.pcanswers.co.uk/tips/default.asp?pagetypeid=2&articleid=35011&subsectionid=616

If it's your PC, you should forbid your roommate to use Kazaa on it!