Solved Can not delete folder HELP am going mad !!

[chrisnewton]

Hi all

I have a problem thats really really starting to get to me lol

I had a folder that had loads of kindle books in it that i tried to delete, however it would not delete some of them because the file name was to long ?? i managed to get rid of all of them expect these 2 folders which would not delete because of long names, i dragged the folder to my desktop and tried again and now i am getting the following message

"the file is no longer located in C: etc etc etc verfity the items loacation and try again.

i have put the folder back in original location but still no joy !

I have tried going through the command promp and sure enough its there and when i try and delete thorugh dos it asks me if i am sure i say Y and still its there????

any ideas anyone this is driving me mad

 

[fseal]

Heh this is a troublesome one.

There are some programs on the net that will delete the file, but you can try a couple of things yourself.

1) Simply rename the file to a single character name. Then try to delete.
2) Try renaming folders that are in the path if you can to one character names (but don't rename any system folders like "user" of course). Try to delete.
3) Got this from the net:
Another option is deleting the files from the cmd prompt.
Start > Run > "cmd" Enter.
cd to the folder one level up from the one that contains the files that won't delete, and use the rd command like "rd /s /q folderwithbadfilenames" Enter
4) Look for a utility on the net. There are several, some for pay and some suspecious looking I can't give advice on a good one.
5) Write a program in c or something to delete the pathname...

The crux of the problem (and it's dissapointing that it's still there) is that NTFS can handle pathnames that are 4096 characters olng but windows explorer can only handle names that are 256 chars or shorter

So programs can handle them fine but as a user through explorer this can happen...

 

[chrisnewton]

thanks for your quick reply, when i try to rename the folder it says

could not find this item the folder is no longer located on c: blah blah etc

can you explain what you mean by the RD command a bit more??

thanks again

Chris

 

[Sardonicus]

I had a folder I couldn't delete.
I booted into the safe mode and was able to delete it.

 

[chrisnewton]

i tried the safe mode suggestion but still no luck, i have gone through dos and deleted eveything in the folder but it wont let me delete the actual folder, when i click on the folder it says location is not available etc etc refers to a location that is unavailable, it could be on the hard drive of this computer or on a network arrghhhhhhhhhhhh there must be a way !!

 

[Brink]

Hello Chris, and welcome to Seven Forums.

You might see if you may be able to use the free program Unlocker to delete the folder.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[fseal]

Well the rd command I got from the net, but lets say the path was "C:\one\two\three\file.ext"
You would open a command prompt at "C:\one\two" (Or "cd" to that folder)
Then type the command "rd /s /q three" and it will delete the "three" folder and all files in it.

Now this is assuming that the folder "three" is expendable

Info on the rd command:
MS-DOS rd and rmdir command help

and

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/55721-folder-delete-command-prompt.html

I do not know if this works myself though...

 

[Mike Connor]

The file manager in 7-zip will delete everything, it is much more powerful than explorer or many other file managers.

Explorer has some severe limitations.

7-Zip

<http://www.7-zip.org/>

32 and 64 BIT freeware.

Regards....Mike Connor

 

[Orbital Shark]

Hi,

You could try resetting all folders to see if it helps...



I've seen many issues with folders not deleting until a refresh (F5) is performed and it has helped. Your issue sounds very similar in the fact that...

1, You may have already deleted the folder and Windows folder view has broken and needs resetting
2, When the folder view is broken deleted folders will still show. There'll be no error with the 1st delete but every delete after


OS

 

[patio]

Is the folder empty ? ?

 

[chrisnewton]

hi all thanks i got rid of it with the rd command in dos!

Thanks for all your help

Chris

 

[DennisCPA]

In my research, many comments related to non-printable (not visible) characters being in the folder or filename - which is exactly what happened to me.

The solution of using 7 Zip is excellent. (Download 7 Zip from SourceForge.net - Safe site)

In a case that I had, there was a final " " Space(1) at the end of the folder name which is easily missed in Windows Explorer because it does not add the final backslash (i.e. "\") that 7 Zip does do. That made the solution more obvious therefore fixable.

My guess is that MS Trims the folder name (eliminating the trailing "Space") when it does its search, thus it cannot find the folder.

When you want to delete a folder but Explorer cannot find that folder, assume that there is a Space as the last character. Open a Cmd(.exe) window as Administrator and issue the following:
RMDIR "Your File Name " (Notice the Space after the word "Name")
This may well solve your challenge is a short time period.

BTW, this is an excellent Win 7 site! I have quickly found many safe and well documentated solutions here.

Thanks Dennis

 

[budidarmawan234]

Using 7zip (Explorer Mode) is perfectly work.

Thanks.

budidarmawan

 

[Memtest]

Try to delete it in "Safe Mode"

 

[dsharrai]

solved my folder deletion issue

I searched high and low trying to figure out why I couldn't delete file folders on my thumbdrive. Even though I was the administrator it kept telling me that I didn't have permission to delete or change the folder. And it wouldn't allow me to take ownership or change the permissions. I realized(after also seeing things such as "cant delete because folder is open in another window" etc.) that I might have a file folder name conflict. Sure enough, I took my thumbdrive to another computer that didn't have the same file names on it and I was then able to delete the folders. So glad this nightmare is over!!

 

[Sethomaha]

New method

Alright so I'm running Windows 8.1 64 bit and I constantly get this message where my folder's location become unavailable and I'm unable to either delete it, move it, or even rename it. I have found that the sure fire method to getting rid of them is to move the folder to another location using unlocker and then you are able to delete it.

It took me a great deal of time and even accidentally deleting my entire Drive once just to get this answer but if you have a Windows 7 it may just also solve your problem so I hope this helps