Re: Slow file deletion

["jasee" <jasee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Anthony R. Gold wrote:
> On Mon, 07 Jul 2008 00:14:57 +0100, Philip Herlihy
> <thiswillbounceback@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> Anthony R. Gold wrote:
>>> I've just started with a new laptop - much like others except a bit
>>> more memory (2GB) and faster HDD (7.2k SATA) under XP and one
>>> behaviour is mystifying me - deleting very large files is very
>>> slow.  By very large I mean over 10GB(*) and by slow I mean over 15
>>> minutes.  No error messages, nothing locked AFAICT, just
>>> mysteriously very very slow.  BTW the same type of deletion is
>>> instantaneous when done in safe mode.  And also I get the same
>>> behaviours (fast under safe mode and slow under normal XP) whether
>>> deleting large files from the local SATA drive or from USB attached
>>> drives.
>>>
>>> * I need to do this as I make successive backups using PQ
>>> DriveImage or Ghost 10 and old archives need to be removed to make
>>> space for newer ones.
>>>
>>> Anyone got any ideas?
>>>
>>
>> Not running a search facility (eg Google desktop) are you?
>
> No, indeed not even XP's Indexing Service.

I would have thought framentation might be a peoblem as it sounds as though 
the drives/partitions are pretty full. Byt it's quick in safe mode you say.
Any error messages in Event log? Saying for instance that the drive 
controller wasn't responding quickly enough?
What make? Dells for instance are preloaded with so much software.