Can’t Delete a File or Folder or Take Ownership

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KB ID 0000887 

Problem

I have a portable drive that I carry in my laptop bag that has all the service packs and iso images that I might need. The problem is when I install service packs and updates on clients servers and PC’s, they have a habit of creating folders on my portable drive that are a pain to delete. While tidying up the drive today, it was telling me I did not have the rights to do so. When I tried to take ownership of the folder this happened;

An error occurred while applying security information to
{Foldername}
Failed to enumerate objects in the container. Access is denied.

Solution

1. Open a command window (Note: Ensure you select ‘Run As Administrator‘).

2. Issue the following commands, replace the ‘Path’ to the foldername, with your own.

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takeown /f F:foldername /r /d y
icacls F:foldername /grant administrators:F /T
rmdir F:foldername /S /Q

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