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Deleting past user accounts


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Hello this would happen to be my first post here so I hope it is up to par with this forum but here it goes.

I am having the problem with my OS system and I am running Windows Xp pro. The problem is that me and one of my friends in a attempt to find my old bookmarks messed up my user account and it started screwing up my desktop. I have just recently reinstalled my OS system due to some bad viruses that I had and I need to reinstall it again because I messed up the OS like I just said. But I am running out of room on my Harddrive that i install my OS on and I have figured out why. All of my old user accounts from the previous times I installed my OS system are still there and taking up about 5 gigs apeice (at least I worked it out to be around there) If I could just delete those user accounts I would free up about 15 gigs or so and beable to fix my computer up and it would run better and just do everything the way it use to. This is where my question comes into play how do I delete those files. I have tryed a few programs like Dr. Delete there is a error messages that always comes with me trying to delete them and it goes a little something like this...

Cannont Delete "File Name": Access is denied. Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use.

If someone could point me in the direction of the answer or a program that would help me out that would be great... If i left something out just let me know and i will be sure to get the answer right away. Well till next time I hope someone can help me!

I have read a post on this forum with similar problems and found out that you need to take ownership of the accounts before you delete them. That sounds simple and I was going to sure the topic as a guide in doing so but when I went to actually do it I could not find the topic. I remember the place it was in and the date the last post was around but I can not remember the oringal poster or the name of the topic. If anybody could point me in the right direction with this it would be greatly apprcieated. Oh and the date was around Febuary 17 or there abouts.

Thank you

tigerstyle

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Are these user accounts you are trying to remove or are they multiple Windows installations? You state they are about 5 gigs apiece - this gives me the impression that they are full Windows installs and you have been installing a new operating system on top of an old one each time.

If this is the case, and you're happy to start afresh the easiest thing to do would be to do a low level format on the drive and only then install a new copy of the O/S.

Don't try anything yet - wait to see if anyone else comes up with different ideas. In the meantime, though, can you say if what I think is correct?

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