Windows 7 Deleting files permanently removes them instead of moving to Recycle Bin

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Abdul Gafoor

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Dear All,

I have been searching a solution for this strange issue for long. I'm an IT Admin in a windows domain where few PCs are affected with this issue. When users delete files, it gets deleted permanently and do not go to Recycle Bin. Users do get alert that file will be deleted permanently. I searched a lot and tried few solutions found. Let me brief what I tried so far;
  • This is the Recycle Bin Properties dialog box, which is strange that I don't see drives there.
  • After doing a lot of search, I tried few solutions. One is to delete $Recycle.Bin folder for all drives and restarting computer (I ran rd /s /q $Recycle.Bin in all drives). Then tried deleting a single file. Though this method recreated $Recycle.Bin hidden folders, it didn't fix my problem.
  • I did run System File Checker by running sfc /scannow
  • Then I found somewhere that booting in safe mode and then deleting a file would repair any issues with Recycle Bin. Tried that as well. Didn't fix my problem.
Please note that all of above actions done and screenshots taken are from an Admin account. Is there anything further I can try to fix this issue? Why did this happen in first place?

Thank you all
 
Last edited:
Solution
Please look at this registry key for affected users.

KEY:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\BitBucket\Volume\{0d2d6493-f756-11e5-ad99-34e6d766f1ca}

VALUE: (DWORD)
NukeOnDelete create it if it's missing and set it to 0
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Hi,
you could try running the system file checker and if it repairs corrupt files try removing the recycle bin again. I assume you can see your drives as per normal when you view 'This PC'?

SFC
Open an admin command prompt and type:
sfc /scannow
Press enter and await results.

Delete Recycle bin:
Link Removed
 
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Thanks for your quick support kemical. I forgot to mention in my first post that I did run system file checker. I am editing the first post. Also, I did delete Recycle Bin, which I mentioned in my first post.
 
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Ah ok sorry bout that.. So can you see your drives normally like on the 'My computer' page (now called 'This PC' in Win 10)?
 
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On your Domain are you certain you have no Group Policies which target the Recycle Bin settings?

User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Explorer
Display confirmation dialog when deleting files
Do not move deleted files to the recycle bin
Maximum allowed Recycle bin size

etc, etc..
 
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kemical, I can see drives normal in My Computer. Only issue is with Recycle Bin.

Josephur, all computers are in one OU. Only handful of computers are hack this issue. To be specific, no, there are no group policies targeting Recycle Bin.
 
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Just because the computers are in the same OU and only some of them are experiencing the problem doesn't mean I 100% trust that theory, since Group Policy can fail at multiple levels if there's domain issues. Since you have this issue on multiple machines it makes me either point to Group Policy, or a common piece of software installed on the machines.

Are they identical in hardware, or have some common software installed?
 
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OK. Good to know that.

But as I said, there never was any GP targeting Recycle Bin.

Common software are some free tools, AV, Office, etc. But same set of software are run on other machines as well.
 
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I just haven't seen the Recycle Bin issue in mass so to speak, are they all the same brand name PC same model or something?
 
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Josephur said:
I just haven't seen the Recycle Bin issue in mass so to speak, are they all the same brand name PC same model or something?
Click to expand...
All of them are same brand, Dell. There are total of 11 computers out of 400 in our domain with this issue. 9 out of this 11 are Latitude E7440 model. Other 2 are SFF 930 models. H/W configuration is same in similar models.
 
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Let's start with the basics before we go trampling around the registry looking for corruption there.. Since this may take awhile I suggest running this on the fastest possible machine with the problem first, and if something works then fix the others. The chkdsk operation will require you to reboot and the machine will not be available for use for awhile, so I would perhaps do it on a system that can be out of commission for 1-4 hours while that operation runs.

At an Administrative command prompt:
chkdsk C: /f /r
rd /s /q C:\$Recycle.bin
sfc /scannow
(reboot)

I know these sound basic, and if you've already done some of these steps please inform. Once we get the basics out of the way we can look more in detail.
 
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Yes, I did run last 2 as I mentioned in my first post, not in particular order though.

But I still would like to run these including disk check for the sake of ruling out possibilities step by step. I'll let you know once I complete.
 
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Hi Josephur,

I did complete following in the written order. Issue still persist.

At an Administrative command prompt:
chkdsk C: /f /r
rd /s /q C:\$Recycle.bin
sfc /scannow
(reboot)​

Please let me know what next step I can go with.
 
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Please look at this registry key for affected users.

KEY:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\BitBucket\Volume\{0d2d6493-f756-11e5-ad99-34e6d766f1ca}

VALUE: (DWORD)
NukeOnDelete create it if it's missing and set it to 0
 
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Solution
I already checked this particular registry entry and made sure NukeOnDelete is 0 under each volume GUID.
 
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