How to delete old vista related folders

[joy]

My 500 GB sata drive was used as the boot drive before and the OS was Windows Vista. Now I switched to the smaller 120 GB sata as the boot drive with vista still the OS.

The problem is deleting those vista related folders in the bigger drive, vista just wouldn't allow me to do that. I can't format the drive because i have other files in it which will not fit in the smaller drive if i transfer them. I doubt vista will allow me to format it too. Does anybody know of a way to delete those vista related folders like the program files folder, boot folder and the old windows folder itself?

[guns1inger]

Chances are they are read only, so start by trying to change this. Failing that, you can always boot off a live linux CD (any distro) or something like Hiren's Boot CD and delete them outside of Vista completely.

[AlanHK]

First be really sure that nothing on the old disk is being used to boot.

Simplest just unplug the drive and see if you can boot okay.

Otherwise, I'm not a Vista user so I can't advise in detail, but you need to bypass the protection features.

ref: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa382503.aspx

This
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/how-to-delete-a-system-file-in-windows-vista/ might be useful.

[redwudz]

You can try Unlocker. It works well for deleting files that the OS normally blocks. Works for Vista, though I haven't tried it with that OS. It's freeware: http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/

[joy]

Chances are they are read only, so start by trying to change this. Failing that, you can always boot off a live linux CD (any distro) or something like Hiren's Boot CD and delete them outside of Vista completely.

Tried changing the attributes but didn't work so I might try this Hiren's Boot CD and thanks.

You can try Unlocker. It works well for deleting files that the OS normally blocks. Works for Vista, though I haven't tried it with that OS. It's freeware: http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/

I'll give it a try when I get home tonight. Thanks

[Krispy Kritter]

If there isn't anything else on the drive, you could just reformat.

[cd090580]

Try starting the recovery console and delete the from from the command line. Maybe it will work.

If it's still not working, build an Ultimate Boot Cd for windows and delete the directories while running the cd.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Can you hook it up to another PC and delete them from there?

[joy]

I forgot to mention this in my original post that I have a dual boot system, XP and Vista.

Finally after too much reading from internet articles/postings, I was able to delete the folders by booting into XP, went to the properties of the folders, and then changed their ownership including the subfolders.

Thank you guys for the input.