Number 312 - May 2009

How I Fixed My Corrupted Recycle Bin
by Sandee Gimblett, Tacoma Open Group for Microcomputers
After recovering from a severe system crash on my laptop running XP, I discovered that I had a corrupted recycle bin. When I opened the Recycle Bin, no files at all would appear, yet when I chose to empty the Recycle Bin, the message would ask if I wanted to delete 76 files. I said not to delete the 76 files. I then created a test file, deleted it, and, again, no files would show-up when I opened the Recycle Bin. When I said to empty the recycle bin again, it now asked if I wanted to delete 77 files, which confirmed my suspicion that the deleted files were actually in the Recycle Bin, but I just couldn't get access to them.    I eventually discovered that the files were in the following directory, accessed via the Command Prompt, in a folder named: C:\Documents and Settings\Sandee\Recent.    After several attempts to repair the Recycle Bin without success, including running ReplBin.reg and other registry repair techniques, here is what finally worked:    1. My Computer    2. Local Disk (C:)    3. Tools	4. Folder Options    5. View    6. Clicked on SHOW HIDDEN FILES AND FOLDERS (I keep this option checked anyhow)    7. Un-clicked on HIDE PROTECTED OPERATING SYSTEM FILES (This should usually NEVER be unchecked, but I unchecked it so I could get access to the Recycle Bin operating system hidden folder)    8. Chose to APPLY TO ALL FOLDERS, chose APPLY, and clicked OK.    9. Right-Clicked on RECYCLER file and renamed it to RECYCLER-BAD    10. Created a dummy file and deleted it.    11. Rechecked my Recycle Bin icon on my Desktop again, and...    12. VOILA! My newly deleted dummy file was there and all is well again!
Number 312 - May 2009