Cannot Delete Corrupt .MKV Vide File

[MaxC]

Hey Y'all,

This is driving me bonkers! Last night I downloaded a movie that had subtitles so I used some mkv program to get rid of them. The first time I did the conversion I got a corrupt file though. Now I can't delete that file. When I try to recycle it, windows explorer freezes and can not calculate what is going on. I have tried about 6 different force-delete/unlocker/delete-on-reboot programs and none of them worked. None of these tactics work in safe mode either. I also can't get the properties of the file. Oh yeah, I also tried deleting it through command prompt (the del command).

How the hell do I get this damn thing off my desktop?? Is there a way to explore/delete stuff from a hard drive before Windows actually boots? Maybe that could delete it.

Please help! I'm running Windows 7 if that's relevant. All this just to watch Rush Hour with no subtitles...

 

[S.T.A.R.S.]

-Boot to SAFE MODE WITH COMMAND PROMPT...
-Write the following command:

chkdsk.exe C: /f /r /x

Press the ENTER button on your keyboard...

If you are asked wether you want to schedule the disk check on the next restart,confirm that you want.(Usually the "Y" letter for YES)

-Now write the following command to restart the computer:

shutdown.exe -r -t 0

-When computer restarts,the process will start so let it finish and do NOT cancel it or turn off your computer.It can take a long time to finish so let it finish...

-Once the process is complete,go ahead and try to delete the file.It can also happen that the file won't be there too since it was corrupted...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

-If for some reason you STILL CANNOT delete the file then load Linux Ubuntu from the CD,locate the file and delete it...

(You can download Ubuntu from the internet.It's free.Just burn the downloaded ".iso" file to a blank CD and then boot from it.Choose ENGLISH language and then choose the first option called TRY UBUNTU WITHOUT ANY CHANGE TO YOUR COMPUTER)...




Cheers!
XP LIVES FOREVER!!!

 

[MaxC]

Yep this worked! Thanks for the idea. I have a newfound respect for Linux now.

The file deleted without any issues when I booted with the DVD I made of that program.

When I rebooted Windows after deletion, I kept getting a crash error from Windows Explorer (explorer.exe, extremely important for a Windows computer to function) that would restart and give the same error. A loop. It was stating the error file was something to do with the explorer but when I used Task Manager to manually stop the service and restart it (by starting process "explorer") Explorer would crash with a DivX file as the issue. Figuring that out was the tricky part.. I managed to fix this by renaming DivXMFSource.dll DivXMFSource.old (navigate in Safe Mode to C:\Program Files\DivX\DivX Plus Media Foundation Components\DivXMFSource.dll) so that it was no longer a valid file. Then everything worked fine.

Altogether took me about 5 hours of troubleshooting so I figured I would share the entire fix if anyone else ever has this issue deleting a corrupt video file. I now have a more-than-healthy fear of corrupt files. Damn what a pain in the ass!

Anyways thanks for the help with deleting it S.T.A.R.S. it seems that that would work with virtually any corrupt file. And it's extremely easy to do. I'd do that first next time instead of trying all these stupid force-delete programs and safe-mode crap.