Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!hplabs!hpda!hpcuhb!hpsmtc1!swh
From: swh@hpsmtc1.HP.COM (Steve Harrold)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Need help removing directory !
Message-ID: <11470036@hpsmtc1.HP.COM>
Date: 17 Aug 88 15:12:40 GMT
References: <1027@pc.ecn.purdue.edu>
Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino
Lines: 35

Re: Removing a directory

If you are absolutely certain that there are no files (hidden or otherwise)
remaining in the directory, I would begin to suspect how the NAME of the 
DIRECTORY itself is formed.

It is possible, in an assembler program, to create filenames and directories 
that contain embedded illegal characters.  Once I had a case where the DIR
command displayed a file named "ABC" but I couldn't do anything with it; I
always got "file not found" even though the DIR was showing it to me.

The kicker was that the complete filename was "ABC XYZ".  Notice the
embedded blank!!!  Apparently the DIR command, when it formats a filename
for display, stops at the first blank character (which is quite reasonable,
since the internal directory entry pads short names with blanks).  If I then
tried to ERASE ABC XYZ, it would still treat "ABC" as the complete filename
and ignore the "XYZ" part.  I couldn't win.

The solution was rather trivial (after some thought).  I simply entered
ERASE ABC* and it finally went away.  Before I did this, I made sure there were
no other files starting with "ABC" that wanted to retain.

If the name of the directory has this problem, you'll have to rename it,
perhaps via an assembler program.  On the other hand, perhaps you STILL have
some files alive within it, files whose names begin with a blank.  Use
Norton to display the directory contents to see if this is the case.

Perhaps you still don't have enough information to solve your problem, 
but maybe this reply will put you on the right track.

--
---------------------
Steve Harrold			...hplabs!hpsmtc1!swh
				HPG200/13
				(408) 447-5580
---------------------