What are the $Recycle.bin subfolders "S-1-5-21-....-1000" or

[Cheryl_27]

I 1st noticed these protected subfolders when doing a defrag & it showed one still fragmented w/ 500 - 600 MB in it. I always empty the recycle bin - main one at bottom of L pane list in Explorer. Obviously, some weren't being emptied.

What is the purpose of these numbered folders? Even logged on as Admin, access was denied, so I changed permissions & looked in them.

There were 2 of those folders on my D:\. If I delete a file from D:, it shows up in the recycle bin w/ trash can icon on D:, and in both of those numbered subfolders under $Recycle.bin on D:, and in the recycle bin at bottom of Explorer list.

Every partition on each of my 2 HDDs has 1, 2 or 3 of these as subfolders of $recycle.bin.

Then each partition has it's own "regular" recycle bin w/ trash can icon.

Thanks.

[Colin-uk Veteran]

i think the numbers corrospond to your SID.

the recycle bin folder on each drive holds data you deleted from that particular drive, afaik.

[Cheryl_27]

Thanks,

OK - SID (assume means Security Identifier). Also assume the last 4 digits - 1000, 1001, etc., are for each user acct.

But - back to the question - what are they for? And why so protected by Windows?

On my Vista x64 box, deleted files from ANY partition show up in the main recycle bin in Explorer - not assoc w/ any partition.

As said, if delete a file from D:, & there are 2 different SIDs, that deleted file shows up in both SID folders (....1000, & ....1001).

If I delete a file from D:, then delete the file from the main recycle bin at bottom of Explorer L pane, it also deletes the file(s) [usually] from BOTH SID folders on D: (for example).

So again, not sure of the purpose of those SID folders, as far as files sent to recycle bin.

Also, emptying main recycle bin did not seem to be deleting files in at least one of those SID folders on C:

[jnelsoninjax]

Not sure why those are there, but if you run CCcleaner it should get rid of all of those temp files/folders :)

[Cheryl_27]

I have run CCleaner many times on this machine, & "empty recycle bin" is checked, but it didn't empty at least one of the SID folders on C:

AFAIK, no other drives' recycle bins had anything left in them.

As a test, I deleted a file from C:. It shows up in every recycle bin on every partition, even on other HDDs.

It also shows up in every unique SID subfolder under $Recycle.bin on every single partition. So, No, the recycle bin on each partition isn't just for files deleted from that partition.

Yet somehow, emptying the recycle bin didn't touch one of the SID folders on C: for quite a while.

Edited September 2, 2009 by Cheryl_27

[jnelsoninjax]

Do you have multiple user accounts set up on your system? From what I have been able to discover, each user account shares the same $recycle.bin folder, but the deleted data is stored in a sub-folder such as you are seeing! Have you tried using Vista's disk cleanup program? Open Disk Cleanup by clicking the Start button, clicking All Programs, clicking Accessories, clicking System Tools, and then clicking Disk Cleanup. It might get rid of those pesky little files! :)