Lots of gibberish letters on my external hard drives

[Twister]

There is lots of folders on my external hard drive(s) I believe to be, a WD Elements of 1TB and 2TB , that says I don't have permission to access/open it, even though I am logged in as the admin user. If I try set access I still don't have permission it says, and the files can be as random of 1b8382dcb516e112dcfbfba9 or similar. They also have the "lock box" on them. I am wondering what these folders are and do? Since I cannot access them or remove them, if its a virus, if my hard drive is starting to fail, or if anything else. Would note to say I have about 11 of these folders on each drive, as soon you enter it. on the G:/ or H:/ or whatever. Example: G:/1b8382dcb516e112dcfbfba9

[Radium_Angel]

17 minutes ago, Twister said:

Example: G:/1b8382dcb516e112dcfbfba9

Typically these are windows update directories. You can take ownership of them under "properties" and then "security" and find your account and give it ownership/full permission

[Twister]

Yea but why does windows update put those folders in my external hard drives HD elements? and not in example C/ or internal mechanical disc drive or SSD drive?

[kirashi]

1 minute ago, Twister said:

Yea but why does windows update put those folders in my external hard drives HD elements? and not in example C/ or internal mechanical disc drive or SSD drive?

Because some installers do this without asking the user (a HUGE no-no in my books) in order to not fill up a potentially already full C:\ drive. Could they at least ask during installation? Absolutely, but they choose not to.

[Radium_Angel]

1 minute ago, Twister said:

Yea but why does windows update put those folders in my external hard drives HD elements? and not in example C/ or internal mechanical disc drive or SSD drive?

If you dig through your master drive, you'll see them there as well.

As to why Windows does this, I have no idea, I didn't work on the OS. Much of what it does doesn't make sense...

[Twister]

8 minutes ago, kirashi said:

Because some installers do this without asking the user (a HUGE no-no in my books) in order to not fill up a potentially already full C:\ drive. Could they at least ask during installation? Absolutely, but they choose not to.

Does it does this because of the C:\ drive is potentially full? If that is the case, then yes mine is potentially already full. And I understand it better then.

[TheBean]

vcredist packages usually have folders like that. if you can open it and you see install files, just delete those folders. also, try search that folder name on google. 

[TheBean]

oh lol nvm....... this post is the only result i get.....

 

[Twister]

yea i tried search it, 0 results.

 

Also tried open them, but again couldn't access. 

 

Not so familiar with taking ownership over folders/files, in the security, prefer not to hassle with that. 

 

these folders normally is empty, or contains lots of harddrive space in them? (and are they safe to delete?)

 

note: most folders were created/last modified in 2013-2015 too.

Edited January 7, 2019 by Twister