Removing BACKUP.??? and CONTROL.??? from a Backup Disk (33112)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 3.1
  • Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 3.2
  • Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 3.21
  • Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 3.3
  • Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 3.3a
  • Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 4.0
  • Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 4.01
  • Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 5.0
This article was previously published under Q33112

SUMMARY

When the BACKUP command from MS-DOS versions 3.x and later are used, it creates two files on the disk in which to store information. These files are BACKUP.??? and CONTROL.???, where the ??? are replaced with disk-sequence number in the backup (e.g. 001, 002, 003, etc.).

When backing up to a hard drive, these files both have the extension .001 and are always placed in a subdirectory called \BACKUP. These files are protected from accidental erasure by setting them with a read-only flag. If you want to delete these files from a disk without reformatting, you must use the ATTRIB command to clear the read-only flag. The following is an example of how to use the ATTRIB command:

ATTRIB -R CONTROL.???
ATTRIB -R BACKUP.???

After using the ATTRIB command to clear the read-only flags on the files, use the DEL command to delete the files.
Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:11/26/2003
Keywords:KB33112
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