Unable to delete folder.

alkemy007 · 27 Mar 2019

I have a folder on my D drive that I can't delete. It's in "my music". It's an album folder that I can't get rid of. I have deleted everything inside of it but the actual folder won't delete. It says "Item Not Found. Could not find this item. This is no longer located in D:\Music. Verify the items location and try again." I have tried to delete the folder via Command Prompt but every time I follow the instructions, I get the D:\Music folder to show and I see the folder in the list, I then type it in exactly as it is (I've copy and pasted it etc), when I press enter, I get "the system cannot find the path specified" about 4 times underneath. I have also tried renaming the folder but that doesn't let me do it either. I have tried quite a few methods but none have worked. Any ideas?

ricardobohner · 27 Mar 2019

1. Open the command prompt where the folder is.

2. Use the dir /x command to find out the folders short name

3. Use shortname to delete file rd /q /s shortname

alkemy007 · 27 Mar 2019

ricardobohner said:

1. Open the command prompt where the folder is.

2. Use the dir /x command to find out the folders short name

3. Use shortname to delete file rd /q /s shortname

Sorry to sound like a noob but I have no idea what that means. How do I open the command prompt where the folder is?

dalchina · 27 Mar 2019

Imagine your file appears to be in
D:\Music\album

So you would open a command prompt

Unable to delete folder.-snap-2019-03-27-14.43.02.png

You could also add the option to launch a command prompt box at the current location to your context menu- meaning you would simply rt click, click the context menu entry:
Open command window here as administrator - Add in Windows 10

I'm also wondering if you are seeing something left over by e.g. Onedrive.

You can delete anything from 'outside' Windows- i.e. if Windows is not running.
For example, boot to a command prompt, starting with SHIFT left click Restart, and navigating through the options
Or from a boot disk- boot your PC from a live boot disk.
Or try a program like Emco MoveOnBoot (which deletes on boot too).

ricardobohner · 27 Mar 2019

You can also open the parent folder where the folder is in File explorer copy the path, open a command prompt

CD (press CTRL + v)

alkemy007 · 27 Mar 2019

I tried all them options, nothing worked. BUT, I stumbled on a solution. For anyone having similar issues, I did this:

Open CMD and then type:

rd /s "\\?\D:\bad\folder\path "

example: rd /s "\\?\D:\Sharedata\folder1\folder2 " - note the space after folder2 as per the space in the folder name. Obviously D: is the drive that has the folder on it.