I can’t delete files on my external USB hard disk drive
External hard disk drive problem
I can’t delete files in Windows 7 Home Premium from my 500GB Western Digital Elements external USB hard disk drive. I can’t find a Delete option and if I drag a file to the Recycle Bin, it won’t go there.
Answer
If you can’t delete files, it looks like a problem to do with permissions or file attributes. Many external hard drives are pre-formatted and, because they are intended to store backups, are designed to make files difficult to delete. Some backup external hard drives even have a physical read-only switch that makes it impossible to write to or delete them.
Also, if the files were copied from CDs or DVDs, they may retain a read-only file attribute.
If there is no read-only hardware switch preventing deletion and you’re using the master Administrator account (not a user account), you can reset the permissions in order to give full access to the files.
Windows 10 Administrator account and other user accounts explained –
Windows 10 Administrator account and other user accounts explained
Microsoft Knowledge Base article 326549 called: You cannot view or change the Read-only or the System attributes of folders in Windows Server 2003, in Windows XP, in Windows Vista or in Windows 7 –
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/326549
– provides step-by-step instructions on “How to use the Attrib command to work around the inability to view or to remove the Read-only or the System attributes of folders in Windows Server 2003, in Windows XP, Windows Vista and in Windows 7.”
Following those instructions, a few clicks should restore the ability to delete the files.