Solved Recycle Bin strangeness

eldiener · Apr 24, 2011

I have a folder which I attempt to delete from the Recycle Bin. It has about 10000 items and when I try to delete it, it says it will take approximately 2 days and 7 hours. This all seems absurd to me as I have fast hard drives and a fast processor.

It starts its process of deleting these items and after it deletes about 12 of them, I choose the Cancel button. It reacts to the Cancel button and closes. When I next look at the Recycle Bin, it shows it completely empty.

I am running Windows Vista Ultimate x64.

Does anybody know why deleting some 10000 items was supposed to take 2 days and 7 hours ?

Does anybody know why after I Cancel after just a few items have been deleted, the Recycle Bin shows nothing in it anymore ?

kesume · Apr 24, 2011

Hi welcome to the forum.
I don't suppose you have put 10000 items in there to recycle?
Please I think a clean boot might help:-
How to troubleshoot a problem by performing a clean boot in Windows Vista or in Windows 7
If that does not work try system restore:-
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/76905-system-restore-how.html
Thank you.

Brink · Apr 24, 2011

Hello Eldiener,

You might see if using the tutorial below to reset the Recycle Bin for the affected drive letter to see if it may be able to help repair any corruption.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/131294-recycle-bin-corrupted-cannot-delete-file-folder.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

eldiener · Apr 25, 2011

kesume said:
Hi welcome to the forum.
I don't suppose you have put 10000 items in there to recycle?
Please I think a clean boot might help:-
How to troubleshoot a problem by performing a clean boot in Windows Vista or in Windows 7
If that does not work try system restore:-
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/76905-system-restore-how.html
Thank you.

The 10000 or so items come from deleting directory structures from my hard disk. When you delete files, it goes to the Recycle Bin. Duh !

I am not interested in exotic things like clean boots and restores. The system appears to work fine. But the way the Recycle Bin is working baffles me and that is why I posted my message.

eldiener · Apr 25, 2011

Brink said:
Hello Eldiener,

You might see if using the tutorial below to reset the Recycle Bin for the affected drive letter to see if it may be able to help repair any corruption.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/131294-recycle-bin-corrupted-cannot-delete-file-folder.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

It is acting like it is deleting these files permanently from the Recycle Bin. But cancelling a Recycling Bin delete operation for many files when it says it will take days to do, and then looking to see what is left in the Recycle Bin and seeing nothing, does seem a little odd, don't you think ?

derekimo · Apr 25, 2011

eldiener said:
kesume said:

Hi welcome to the forum.
I don't suppose you have put 10000 items in there to recycle?
Please I think a clean boot might help:-
How to troubleshoot a problem by performing a clean boot in Windows Vista or in Windows 7
If that does not work try system restore:-
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/76905-system-restore-how.html
Thank you.

Click to expand...

The 10000 or so items come from deleting directory structures from my hard disk. When you delete files, it goes to the Recycle Bin. Duh !

I am not interested in exotic things like clean boots and restores. The system appears to work fine. But the way the Recycle Bin is working baffles me and that is why I posted my message.

Duh? ..... We're just trying to help here.

You didn't mention if you tried any of the suggestions, here's something else to look at,

Emptying recycle bin takes forever - Microsoft Answers

eldiener · Apr 25, 2011

derekimo said:
eldiener said:

kesume said:

Hi welcome to the forum.
I don't suppose you have put 10000 items in there to recycle?
Please I think a clean boot might help:-
How to troubleshoot a problem by performing a clean boot in Windows Vista or in Windows 7
If that does not work try system restore:-
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/76905-system-restore-how.html
Thank you.

Click to expand...

The 10000 or so items come from deleting directory structures from my hard disk. When you delete files, it goes to the Recycle Bin. Duh !

I am not interested in exotic things like clean boots and restores. The system appears to work fine. But the way the Recycle Bin is working baffles me and that is why I posted my message.

Click to expand...

Duh? ..... We're just trying to help here.

You didn't mention if you tried any of the suggestions, here's something else to look at,

Emptying recycle bin takes forever - Microsoft Answers

I tried to remove the recycle bin so that Vista would recreate it. Trying to remove the recycle bin fails. Doing it from the command line just hangs forever. Doing it from Windows explorer goes through a process where it keeps telling me that it has hundreds of thousands of iems to delete and it never finishes deleting them, as the numbers go up and down telling how many items are left to delete while it is doing it.

It is possible that all these items are still in the recycle bin waiting to be deleted, although the recycle bin shows me nothing.

kesume · Apr 25, 2011

eldiener said:
kesume said:

Hi welcome to the forum.
I don't suppose you have put 10000 items in there to recycle?
Please I think a clean boot might help:-
How to troubleshoot a problem by performing a clean boot in Windows Vista or in Windows 7
If that does not work try system restore:-
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/76905-system-restore-how.html
Thank you.

Click to expand...

The 10000 or so items come from deleting directory structures from my hard disk. When you delete files, it goes to the Recycle Bin. Duh !

I am not interested in exotic things like clean boots and restores. The system appears to work fine. But the way the Recycle Bin is working baffles me and that is why I posted my message.

Apologies I misread your original post. Assumed wrongly that they were there by some error or mistake.

Only trying to help! Duh! Remark totally rude & uncalled for.

derekimo · Apr 25, 2011

See if this helps any,

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/66978-system-files-sfc-command.html

You may have to run it more than once if it finds too many to fix at one time.

t-4-2 · Apr 25, 2011

eldiener said:
I have a folder which I attempt to delete from the Recycle Bin. It has about 10000 items and when I try to delete it, it says it will take approximately 2 days and 7 hours. This all seems absurd to me as I have fast hard drives and a fast processor.

It starts its process of deleting these items and after it deletes about 12 of them, I choose the Cancel button. It reacts to the Cancel button and closes. When I next look at the Recycle Bin, it shows it completely empty.

I am running Windows Vista Ultimate x64.

Does anybody know why deleting some 10000 items was supposed to take 2 days and 7 hours ?

Does anybody know why after I Cancel after just a few items have been deleted, the Recycle Bin shows nothing in it anymore ?

I don't have a solution for you.
Just trying to cover all bases.....
10,000 items are no small change, any idea what is the total file size (in terms of MB) of those 10,000 items ?
My point : your Recycle Bin may not have the capacity to handle 10,000 items at one time.

Right click Recycle Bin > Properties > under Custom size, what is the max. size it is set at ?
You can change the numbers if needed.

My Recycle Bin max size in C: drive is 7127 MB

eldiener · Apr 25, 2011

t-4-2 said:
eldiener said:

I have a folder which I attempt to delete from the Recycle Bin. It has about 10000 items and when I try to delete it, it says it will take approximately 2 days and 7 hours. This all seems absurd to me as I have fast hard drives and a fast processor.

It starts its process of deleting these items and after it deletes about 12 of them, I choose the Cancel button. It reacts to the Cancel button and closes. When I next look at the Recycle Bin, it shows it completely empty.

I am running Windows Vista Ultimate x64.

Does anybody know why deleting some 10000 items was supposed to take 2 days and 7 hours ?

Does anybody know why after I Cancel after just a few items have been deleted, the Recycle Bin shows nothing in it anymore ?

Click to expand...

I don't have a solution for you.
Just trying to cover all bases.....
10,000 items are no small change, any idea what is the total file size (in terms of MB) of those 10,000 items ?
My point : your Recycle Bin may not have the capacity to handle 10,000 items at one time.

Right click Recycle Bin > Properties > under Custom size, what is the max. size it is set at ?
You can change the numbers if needed.

My Recycle Bin max size in C: drive is 7127 MB

Since it no longer shows, I have no idea how much space those 10000 or so items took up, but I recall it to have been about 5 GB. My C: drive is set the same as yours, which is about 7 GB. Also if there is not enough space in the Recycle Bin to handle deletes, then of course Vista should notify me at the least.

I have turned off the Recycle Bin and have noticed much faster deletes of files. My main concern is that the Recycle Bin has lots of items, but because I can not get rid of it, it is wasting some of my hard disk space. Oh well ! A really poor part of Vista, which is otherwise very solid IMO.

eldiener · Apr 25, 2011

derekimo said:
See if this helps any,

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/66978-system-files-sfc-command.html

You may have to run it more than once if it finds too many to fix at one time.

I tried sfc but everything was fine.

derekimo · Apr 25, 2011

Have you thought about CCleaner - Optimization and Cleaning - Free Download to clean up your computer?

Option two, number four of this tutorial,

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/86163-hidden-files-folders.html

Will allow you to see the root recycle bin and it's contents.

I would use caution, as suggested by the warning at the top of this tutorial about deleting files from this area of the computer.

eldiener · Apr 25, 2011

derekimo said:
Have you thought about CCleaner - Optimization and Cleaning - Free Download to clean up your computer?

Option two, number four of this tutorial,

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/86163-hidden-files-folders.html

View attachment 23295

Will allow you to see the root recycle bin and it's contents.

I would use caution, as suggested by the warning at the top of this tutorial about deleting files from this area of the computer.

I can see the $Recycle Bin folder as I alsways have all my folders/files unhidden. It consists of 3 folders each called Recycle Bin. Clicking on each of these folders shows it empty.

If I tried to delete the $Recycle Bin folder it goes into an endless wait showing me the thousands of supposed items it must delete and the number of items it keeps showing me goes up and down seemingly at random as it is "deleting" these items. It never ends, or maybe it will end someday in the future. Who knows and who cares given the brilliant programming that has gone into this application.

Lottiemansion · Apr 25, 2011

Hi,

Delete the "$Recycle.Bin" folder on each drives you have installed, NOT the sub folders. This should cause the "$Recycle.Bin" folder to be re-created & fix the issue/ problem. OK?

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/131294-recycle-bin-corrupted-cannot-delete-file-folder.html

eldiener · Apr 25, 2011

Lottiemansion said:
Hi,

Delete the "$Recycle.Bin" folder on each drives you have installed, NOT the sub folders. This should cause the "$Recycle.Bin" folder to be re-created & fix the issue/ problem. OK?

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/131294-recycle-bin-corrupted-cannot-delete-file-folder.html

I can delete the #Recycle Bin folder on two of the drives. But when I try to delete it from drive C: I get a message box which shows a message:

Deleting 68,932 Items ( 8.48 GB )

with the number of items and space constantly going up, a progress bar which is full and saying: About 0 seconds remaining,

and a Less Information/More Information button on the left and a Cancel button on the right.

As I am writing this the message now shows:

Deleting 181, 342 items ( 9.41 GB )

and it keeps rising.

It never ends and the numbers keep rising continually.

Lottiemansion · Apr 27, 2011

Hi,

OK, thats not good news.

Can you see the items in the Recycle bin generating & deleting? IF so, what are they?

Look here & if it makes sense? Try it: -

http://www.vistax64.com/general-discussion/161723-help-vista-recycle-bin-not-emptying-2.html

eldiener · Apr 27, 2011

Lottiemansion said:
Hi,

OK, thats not good news.

Can you see the items in the Recycle bin generating & deleting? IF so, what are they?

Look here & if it makes sense? Try it: -

http://www.vistax64.com/general-discussion/161723-help-vista-recycle-bin-not-emptying-2.html

The process of deleting the Recycle Bin finally stopped and the message box went away, so maybe it finished doing whatever it was doing. Now my recycle bin is working again with reasonable numbers of items and sizes. But it sure is slow as compared to deleting immediately. But at least it is back to normal.

As a programmer myself I d not think this application, as simple as it is, was designed very well.

Thanks for your help.

Lottiemansion · Apr 28, 2011

Hi,

Is the normal function of emptying the Recycle bin? i.e right mouse, open & select "Empty the Recycle Bin".

If so, please click on the red triangle (Top right hand side of post), then type "Solved" & send the message to complete the thread.

If not? Post back & we can look into this problem further. OK?

Paul.

Solved Recycle Bin strangeness

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