Need help deleting file that doesn't exist.

Sorry no solution,just saying i've got same prob with a file without a name that appeared after my electric went off.Can't for the life of me delete it.Tried everything,says either doesn't exist,name too long or when i do get anything up on it(i tried many proggies and methods),it just thinks it's the drive root.It won't delete on a reboot either.
It has an 'N' attribute.
Is not supposed to be there,I was dublious it was a system file,but i've had win7 since it started;i have release version now,and it's never been there before.I'm sure formatting the drive would do it,but it has 340gb of stuff on it,so that would be a wee pain.
Can't wait to find out what it is,will watch this thread,hopefully between us we can sort it.

richc46 said:

Download Unlocker 1.8.9 - FileHippo.com

We are all trying to meet your challenge.

Hi, thanks for that program it did it for me, I tried both Eraser and Malwarebyte's "file assassin" but those just showed me "File not found" error but oddly Unlocker didn't and it got deleted.

Thanks for help everybody.

Hehe, well I had in mind if everything failed to delete the file, I'd actually delete whole "downloads" folder but the thing that kept me away from doing so was that I didn't know if it will cripple my windows, if someone can confirm that deleting "downloads" folder will not have impact on windows in anyway, then those who have similar problem with non-existent file in downloads (note that it doesn't have to be downloads only, it might work with other folders and so on) should just move everything they need out of downloads folder and leave that non-existent file in and just delete downloads, but I'm not sure about if this will work but if it would then you could just copy paste "downloads" folder from another users folder into your own users folder and have it again without any of those pesky non-existent. Still I don't know if this would work.

I know this post is very old, but it was one of the first links that came up in google when I searched for this exact problem. I actually figured it out by trial and error. So... In case someone wants a direct fix and not wanting to install a program, follow these steps:

1. Click Start and go to Run.
2. Type in "cmd" without the quotes.
3. Navigate to whatever directory the file/folder(s) are located in.
4. Type "dir/x" without the quotes to show a short form of the file names.
5. See the file/folder(s) you want gone?

For FILES type this without the quotes:

"del FILENAME" Example: "del tragtes~1.rar"


For FOLDERS type this without the quotes:

"rmdir /q /s FOLDERNAME" Example: "rmdir /q /s TRAGSFOLDER~1"

Then hit Enter.
6. Close out of command prompt and go to the directory the files/folders were in and you'll see that they have been removed. :)


Hope this helps!
- Trag

richc46 said:

Download Unlocker 1.8.9 - FileHippo.com

We are all trying to meet your challenge.

Ditto, I use this all the time for stubborn files.

This is many years later, but here is how I deleted a file that Windows said didn't exist--but was sitting on my desktop.

I ran a Live CD running Linux. Once it booted into Linux, I opened the desktop folder and deleted the file Windows (and DOS) said didn't exist.

1 left click on rogue file/folder,just to select it.
2 right click on rogue file/folder.
3 left click on "PROPERTIES".
4 left click on "DETAILS" tab.
5 at the bottom of the window,left click on "Remove properties and personal information"
6 in new window,left click on second radio button "Remove the following properties from this file"
7 in same window,left click SELECT ALL
8 in same window,left click O.K.
9 in DETAILS tab window,left click O.K.
Should now be in Recycle bin.

This is how I deleted a folder that had the error does not exsist.

I just use Winrar to zip it up you must select delete files after archiving.
you will find that your file or folder has been deleted. All you have to do after that is delete the compressed archive.

Waynetavit.