How do I remove a part from a save file without getting the "Hello world" bug?

[praise the suuun]

Title says it all. I built an enormous craft; about 650 parts, and I backed it so I could perform a fresh installation. Ive accidentally left out one part from my fresh installation. After hours of goggling I cant find it again. thankfully its not ae deck of cards scenario; it's just ae radially attached rcs thruster. I attempted to remove thee three instances of the part by deleting each separate block of text completely from the .cfg but booted up to an 'all-buttons-frozen-craftname-is-helloworldhelloworldhelloworldhelloworldhelloworld etc'.

I felt like i'd come across a demon imbedded in my hard drive! what do, engineers?

Edited July 14, 2013 by praise the suuun

[stupid_chris]

Hmm. Were any parts/struts attached to those parts? Also, did you remove the notes on the parts that they were attached to to tell them the block was attached to them?

[praise the suuun]

Had a once over my memory. It seems I deleted the RCS blocks long ago. There are two parts stacked together: One a B9 aerospace reaction wheel. Then there's a Fustek Munox RCS ring clipped around it. If clipping wasn't so lenient it wouldn't really work but I'm guessing it just doesn't like having two parts on the same attachment node. I thought it would be an easy fix when I recognized the "missing part" dialogue as "shuttle.rcs block" as an rcs port but its a little bit harder. >_< my question still stands though. id love to know how to remove a non structurally crucial part from save file correctly.

[stupid_chris]

If the element is stacked, you're gonna have a hard time. You have to find every part it's linked to and delete the link. You might not be able to do it, if removing the part cuts your ship in two, you're pretty much screwed.

[praise the suuun]

ok thats straightforward enough. thanks chris