Invisible files on removable hard drive

[PSLog]

I have been trying to set up an Xcopy to a removable hard drive to use as my backup medium.

It didn't work smoothly and now I have a situation where the drive thinks there is a directory on it (BackDir) with files in it but they are invisible to Explorer.

Properties shows there to be 2.5 Gb on the drive.
If I try to Xcopy to BackDir it asks if I want to overwrite.
If I do a DOS del *.* on that drive it finds nothing to delete.
It won't let me format the drive because some other process has it open.

What is happening here?

 

[StormBringer]

are you running XP and have System Restore enabled on that drive? Or maybe Norton Protected recycle Bin or similar other app?

 

[PSLog]

Yes to XP - No to other two.

The invisible files matter has been fixed by a reboot which allowed me to reformat the drive.

I think it is related to the following:
The Xcopy (in a batch file) doesn't seem to be releasing the removeable (USB) drive after it has finished.
When I go to "Safely remove hardware" Windows says something like "Can't eject hardward at this time. Try again later" but it never does allow it unless I reboot.
I have disk caching turned off.

 

[Rick]

Try using xxcopy instead of xcopy. I find it does a better job (and many more things) than xcopy.

www.xxcopy.com