Windows 7 Why are there 4 (!) RECYCLE BINs on my partition? Outer and Inner RecycleBins?

[pstein]

After having disabled the option "protect my system folders) I had a look on my folders and found 4 (!) different RECYCLE BINs on my second, non-system partition D:

Have a look at the attached snapshot of my WinExplorer view and the corresponding listing with "dir /a".

Why are there so many RECYCLE BINs?

Whats the difference between the outer and the 4 inner RECYCLE BINs?

Why does one of the RECYCLE BINs has a short name while the others a longer like

S-1-5-21-1007407404-2758...........

Why do 2 of the tiny icons have a lock symbol and two not?

Can I delete them (e.g. from an externally booted ToolCD)?
Will the necessary (one and only ?) RECYCLE BIN then automatically re-created at next startup?

Peter

 

[Josephur]

try "wmic useraccount get name,sid" Those SID numbers are for individual users, this way Windows can stuff everyone's recycle bin in one folder. You can delete them, and I believe you can delete the whole $RECYCLE.BIN folder if you'd like, Windows has become very robust at recreating and repairing it. (do at your own risk but I do it all the time with no problems)