rmdir problem

[royG]

hi
i am checking if a directory exists and if it does i want to delete it
and its contents.then i want to create the directory before creating
files in it.

def myfolderops():
    testdir='..\mytestdir'
    #if dir exist remove it
    if isdir(testdir):
        rmdir(testdir)
    #again create directory
    mkdir(testdir)

I am working on WinXP and logged in as admin in WinXP. when there is
no dir called '..\mytestdir' or an empty dir  this code works removing
and creating the directory.but if the directory exists with contents
already then it causes an error 145 when rmdir is executed.the message
says 'directory is not empty'
 what should i do  to correct this?
(i need to remove the dir with its contents because each time i will
be putting diff files into it and donot want them to be mixed with old
files)

thanks
RG