[SOLVED] Cannot delete abnormally large .avi file with no data

[TheProgenitor]

So I sometimes record clips of games I play so that I can edit them and post them elsewhere. However recently I noticed the folder that contains these raw recordings has been opening rather slowly. I figured it was just because I hadn't cleaned it out in a while, so I went to delete everything. Well, it didn't work. The prompt was simply stuck on "processing." That was when I noticed that one of these video files had a thumbnail that hadn't loaded yet. Assuming that was the problem child, I canceled the process and selected everything in that folder except that one file, and what do you know they all get deleted almost instantly.

Well, now I have an issue. I tried to delete the file manually, but nothing I do works. Pressing delete on my keyboard does literally nothing; not even a prompt saying "this action can't be done because [...]," just, nothing. Same thing with right click -> delete. So then I tried something more direct. I opened up my Command Prompt and did the following:

It's been trying to process this command for about 10 minutes at the time of this post. The cursor has simply gone to the next line and nothing else has output. I thought "huh, that's really weird," so I went to take a look at the file. Here's the properties:

First thing I noticed is that this thing is abnormally large, even for an AVI file. 28.1 GB is larger than even some of my 10 minute recordings. Second thing is that this thing is 0 seconds long. There's nothing recorded at all. Yet it's somehow 28 GB. I can only guess that this file is totally corrupted and that's why it won't leave my system when I try to delete it. But I have no idea how to go about that if even my command prompt is useless. I tried looking around but anyone having trouble deleting a file didn't have something to this extent and all the solutions I saw were things I've already tried, such as forcing the deletion using the Command Prompt.

Anyone have any ideas how I can scrub this thing?
Thanks for your help.

 

[TerryLaze]

You can always try to boot with freedos or some linux distro, they are less picky with destroying files.
Windows scandisk might fix the problem and turn the file into something that can be deleted,but this will also take very long.

It could also be that the file got corrupted because the drive has a bad sector so running a surface scan with some harddrive util might give you some answers.

 

[TheProgenitor]

Welp, while I was waiting for a reply, I let that Command Prompt I had run keep doing its thing and eventually it managed to delete the file on its own. It must have taken quite a while because I remember tabbing back to that window a few times before forgetting about it. Not sure when it managed to do so, but I guess the situation resolved itself. I'm still curious as to how the heck that avi got so disproportionately large, but at least the issue is dealt with.