permission to delete files

I have a partitioned drive on my computer. I have just had one partition reformatted and Windows 7 installed on this partition. The other partition has the residual files of windows Vista that I wish to delete.
The computer tells me I need permission to do so. I am unable to discover where that permission resides on the computer. Can anyone help with advice, please.

You should be able to run as administrator if it's your own computer....which means that when you install or change a programme you can do it but no one else can't....

Good luck

Problem. The computer was built for me. I suspect that this person is being treated as the administrator. The computer tells me I need the administrators permission. I need to get beyond this instruction and I cannot reason how to do this. I have also a guest account on this computer that asked for a password. I have no idea what password could have been entered by the builder of the computer. All sounds simple, but it has me beaten
regards thoramay.

Can you just log in as adminstrator leaving the passwod blank?

If the PC builder has put a password on the administrator account, you need to give him or her a call...

This may help.

I've had similar problems. In the end, I changed the owner of the folders/files to my account, then I was able to delete all that I needed.

Using Windows Explorer, find the folder you need to change.
Right click that folder > Properties > Security Tab > Advanced > Owner Tab > Edit
Select the account of the new owner, tick the box labelled "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects", Click OK.

That should sort it and allow you to delete any files in that folder's hierarchy.

Can you not just reformat that partition? ( assmuming there's nothing else of value on it and just those old vista files )

Peter. I have followed your instructions and renamed to ' owner user'.
when I try to remove the files it tells me I need the permission of the owner user. I do not understand why this will still not let me delete those files. Is there any possibility of there being a password? I cannot see any evidence of such.

We have tried to reformat the drive but cannot even do this. My beleif that this was a partitioned drive is wrong. There are two seperate drives in the computer. I could just leave those files there except that it bugs me that this has me beaten.
Thanks for your time and interest.
thoramay.

This does happen. It's down to Windows being very protective as it thinks you are trying to do things that you really shouldn't.

Have you tried formatting the partition rather than just deleting the files?

I recommend burning this ISO and booting from it. It's Linux and will allow you to manager your drives and partitions. Best of all is it's free!

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php

You need to set the owner to the user account you use to log in. If there is only one user account (not Administrator) and it has no password set, you may not know what your user name is. To determine what your user name is, click Start, your user name will appear at the top of the right hand column.

If that user name = 'owner' then you should try setting the owner of the drive that you want to reformat or delete contents to the user name 'Everyone'.

To do this, follow my procedure above but before you execute the "Select the account of the new owner" step, Click the 'Other users and groups' button. In the dialogue box that appears, type 'Everyone', click OK, then continue with the remainder of my procedure above at the "Select the account of the new owner" part, and select the user name 'Everyone'.

If you need to, on the Security tab of the drive properties, you can also add the 'Everyone' user and grant Full Control to that user.

If that doesn't do it, I'm stumped too. The only other thing I can suggest is that you download the appropriate disk diagnostic tool from the drives manufacturer's site. These diagnostics usually include a low level formatting utility. That will certainly reformat the drive to the state it left the factory. From there, you should be able to partition and format it with a file system.

Doing so of course, will permanently erase everything on it.

One last thought. Can you not simply delete/remove the offending partition and start from scratch by creating a new partition?

Thanks for the additional information. This is not a partitioned drive, as I originally stated. It is a seperate drive. Not sure why there were two drives put in this machine but it has its uses as a photographic set up allowing me to back up to the second drive.
Will follow your advice and hopefully succeed. Not very competent with the computers as must be obvious.
regards thoramay.

Are they actually Vista operating system files or some other files left by the previous owner of the drive? if they are the former than the above replys should help solve the problem, on the other hand if its the latter then it's possible the previous owner of the drive had his personal files protected by password and set as non-sharing, in which case you would not be able to access them and I doubt if you could delete them either, EDIT sorry, missed the bit where you said you'd tried to format.

EDIT: I'm surprised whoever built the machine for you left unecessary files cluttering up potential disk space.

Try this:

Go to Control Panal, click "User Accounts and family safety" then choose "User Accounts", choose the last option which should be "Turn User Account Control on or off" uncheck the box for UAC (user account control) click OK

Exit everything and try to delete the files again.

Even though it's a separate drive, it is still partitioned. It might have only one partition which you should be able to remove/delete. Then simply create a new one and job's a good'un.