# Quarantine folder problem



## Callum Picken (Jan 7, 2011)

My sister has a laptop with a 100GB-ish hard drive. It is nearly full so i looked through to see if i could find anything that could be deleted. I only found 30GB of stuff on there. I looked for hidden folders and it turns out the McAfee quarantine folder was over 50GB in size. Naturally i tried to open it and delete it. Problem is it took ages to try to open, over 24 hours so far. I tried to delete it via security centre and that took more than 24 hours and still didn't open. I cannot delete the folder itself due to McAfee having some kind of protection on it. My question is whether there is any method of deleting it without opening it and avoiding the access issue.I don't really know if this is the correct place for the question but as the folder contains viruses i thought this was the best place.
Thanks for any assistance given.


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## tetonbob (Jan 10, 2005)

If the quarantine folder is that full, it may be that the machine is still badly infected.

You can try first disabling Access Protection in McAfee, then access the quarantine folder and delete the files via Shift + del to bypass recycle bin;

It should be something like this for a current installation of McAfee.

Open your McAfee product by clicking the M icon on the desktop or near the system clock.

Click Navigation in the top right corner

Under Settings, Click General Settings and Alerts

Expand the Access Protection drawer and uncheck Use Access Protection

Click Apply

Leave Security Center open



On XP Open C:\documents and settings\all users\application data\mcafee\virusscan\quarantine

Delete all the .bup files

On Vista and Windows 7 Open C:\programdata\mcafee\virusscan\quarantine

Delete all the .bup files

Go back to Security Center and check Use Access Protection

Click Apply

Close Security Center



Or try Safe Mode; or uninstall McAfee and run the McAfee Removal Tool which deletes all traces. 

Another option would be to post in the user-to-user dedicated McAfee forums.

https://community.mcafee.com/community/home


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## eggman7 (Jan 15, 2011)

I found this solution works.
1. using notepad create a command file named e.g. del_mcafee.cmd
2. add the command below to the file named above, adjusting the folder name below as required, the command should all be on one line,
del /Q "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\McAfee\VirusScan\Quarantine\*.*"
3. add the file del_mcafee.cmd to the scheduler to run at start up.
I can only assume that this deletes the files before Mcaffee opens/locks them.
You will need to reboot for this to take effect. 
Also, as you have so many files, you may have to reboot a number of times to delete them all. It might be worth DIR'ing the folder before you reboot each time to see how many files you have left.


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## Callum Picken (Jan 7, 2011)

Ok thanks people unfortunately i will be unable to test this as i have returned to university. I will test over the easter holiday.

Thanks


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