Windows 10 Home does not empty recycle bin

Hey Brink what's up!

He might have a file in his recycle bin that's protected, do you approve of "Unlocker"?, I just used it to delete a file that got hung up in there. It's over on MajorGeeks, watch out for the opt-in, it's the Babylon toolbar virus, choose custom install and then de-select "Delta Toolbar" and that will safely load Unlocker. It still works in Windows 10.

I don't know if that's an approved tool, because the installer has that virus, but as long as you opt out of it, you're safe.

I might have found the cause - and resolution - to the problem (or it could just be a fluke).

I had OneDrive running; the moment I killed it (not just stopped or paused it, but forcefully killed the process), I was able to BOTH empty the recycle bin AND delete the $RECYCLE.BIN folder. Incidentally, my OneDrive folder in Windows 10 was directly under F: (F:\OneDrive).

I've heard of OneDrive being problematic on Windows 10, but I didn't tie it into this problem.

If it helps someone else with the same problem, the "solution" that worked for me was to stop and kill OneDrive on Windows 10. This allowed me to empty the recycle bin, delete F:\$RECYCLE.BIN and successfully complete CHKDSK.

kunalashar said:

Delete too does notwork; on F:, even running rmdir /q /s on F:\$RECYCLE.BIN through an elevated command prompt behaves as before - simply does nothing, and seems to hang.
And the CHKDSK too failed, with the same behavior. When running CHKDSK on F:, it halts at 12%, and remains there indefinitely.

Do you have access to a WinRE disk? I don't know what site offers those, on the MS site somewhere? Google it, there should be an ISO that can be downloaded/ The version for Windows 8 should still work for 10, just get the ISO image and burn it, Boot to it, and then you can try CHKDSK etc on your main drive- It may be failing because you are running it from Windows.

Also, check your Recycle bin properties, shut off recycle bin for all drives that are not Drive C.

And check out Unlocker, if Brink approves it. Basiucally you right click on the locked file and choose "Unlocker" and then choose "Delete" from the unlocker window, if the locked file is attached to Explorer, choose "Delete" and then "Kill All" or "Kill Process" and that will detach the locked file from Explorer so it can be deleted.

Brink said:

Hey Jonny,

I would think that it would have been deleted to the Recycle Bin if it was protected.

May need to format F if Unlocker can't delete F:\$RECYCLE.BIN.

If he can get some kind of boot disk or WinRE disk, or a windows install disk, he could boot to that and then run CHKDSK from that. I've had locked files end up in the recycle bin, it doesn't happen often.

kunalashar said:

I might have found the cause - and resolution - to the problem (or it could just be a fluke).

I had OneDrive running; the moment I killed it (not just stopped or paused it, but forcefully killed the process), I was able to BOTH empty the recycle bin AND delete the $RECYCLE.BIN folder. Incidentally, my OneDrive folder in Windows 10 was directly under F: (F:\OneDrive).

I've heard of OneDrive being problematic on Windows 10, but I didn't tie it into this problem.

If it helps someone else with the same problem, the "solution" that worked for me was to stop and kill OneDrive on Windows 10. This allowed me to empty the recycle bin, delete F:\$RECYCLE.BIN and successfully complete CHKDSK.

Sounds like you got it, OneDrive basically is not really on your PC, it's a cloud service like iCloud Drive.

How did Onedrive end up on Drive F, is that where your Windows is installed?

The one thing you gotta remember, is that your OneDrive folder is not a local folder, so you can't really delete anything directly from there.

Pleased you got sorted mate.

Here, this pic might explain a little of what's happening in there, this folder here:



That says "Personal (Web)" - That is your remote One Note folder. If you try to delete that on your PC, it's big trouble. If you tried to delete that, it could have caused this whole issue.