Tjyylli

This is a very similar problem to this QA ( How can I delete a file that "Does not exist" ), except I'm on an entirely Windows computer, whereas the OP in that question was SSHing to a NAS running Linux.

I was using git with GitKraken and was performing a merge that I later aborted. During the merge I was diffing two files from two commits in the same branch and git (or GitKraken - I'm not sure who was responsible for the file, exactly) created two files on-disk representing a merge-conflicted file, each file represents the file's state from each commit.

When I was done, I tried to delete the files (it failed to clean-up after itself) - one of the two files was deleted successfully, but the other file cannot be deleted.

• The file exists on a local volume (a Samsung PCI-Express NVMe SSD )


• The volume is formatted NTFS 3.1 running Windows Server 2016


• The file appears in Windows Explorer and dir (see screenshot above)


• 
  

  Attempting to perform any operation on the file in Windows explorer, including Move, Rename, Delete, and Shift+Delete, results in this error message:

  
  
  

  
  

  Item Not Found
  
  Could not find this item
  
  This is no longer located in C:gitredacted
  
  Verify the item's location and try again.

  
  
  

  DemoServiceClient.cs~WIP
  
  Type: File
  
  Size: 8.35KB
  
  Date modified: 2017-12-14 12:30

  
  
  

  [Try Again] [Cancel]

  
  

  
  


• 
  

  The File Properties dialog is empty:

  
  
  

  

  
  


• 
  

  The File Properties dialog's Security tab says:

  
  
  

  
  

  The requested security information is either unavailable or can't be displayed

  
  

  
  



• The total filename length is 130 characters, well within MAX_PATH (260 characters)



• 
  

  The file appears in dir /a as a normal file (i.e. not an NTFS link or reparse point):

  
  
  

   Directory of C:gitredacted
  
  
  
  2017-12-14  12:36    <DIR>          .
  
  2017-12-14  12:36    <DIR>          ..
  
  2017-12-14  12:30             8,559 DemoServiceClient.cs~WIP.
  
              1 File(s)          8,559 bytes
  
              2 Dir(s)  223,416,360,960 bytes free
  
  

  
  


• 
  

  Running del DemoServiceClient.cs~WIP gives me this error:

  
  
  

  
  

  Could Not Find C:gitredactedDemoServiceClient.cs~WIP`

  
  

  
  


• 
  

  chkdsk reported no issues:

  
  
  

  Stage 1: Examining basic file system structure ...
  
    1140992 file records processed.
  
  File verification completed.
  
    19089 large file records processed.
  
    0 bad file records processed.
  
  
  
  Stage 2: Examining file name linkage ...
  
    1527444 index entries processed.
  
  Index verification completed.
  
    0 unindexed files scanned.
  
    0 unindexed files recovered to lost and found.
  
  
  
  Stage 3: Examining security descriptors ...
  
  Security descriptor verification completed.
  
    193227 data files processed.
  
  CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
  
    34291080 USN bytes processed.
  
  Usn Journal verification completed.
  
  
  
  Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems.
  
  No further action is required.
  
  
  
   499526655 KB total disk space.
  
   290439980 KB in 856509 files.
  
      464848 KB in 193228 indexes.
  
           0 KB in bad sectors.
  
     1258155 KB in use by the system.
  
       65536 KB occupied by the log file.
  
   207363672 KB available on disk.
  
  
  
        4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
  
   124881663 total allocation units on disk.
  
    51840918 allocation units available on disk.
  
  

  
  

I had the same problem and found a solution here.

Edit: You will HAVE to move/rename the file into a folder you can delete with the provided solution (or check if you can already delete the file's parent folder).

Edit2: I also just found out that NTFS (or Windows itself) does not like/allow for file names to end with a dot (or a space). Try removing the dot from the end of the file name (may need to do that from CMD).

Here goes Rayza73's answer fo reference.

I tried pretty much all he did, and also tried renaming the folder a few times.

I had this same problem using Server 2012 Std. I tried various options
of taking ownership of the parent folder because the Security
properties of the folder I was trying to delete were blank, using CMD
and Dir /x etc. I even tried sharing the parent folder and then using
Server 2008 R2. None of them worked. When I tried Dir /x Server 2012
doesn't show the 8 character filename with the ~1. I tried typing it
in myself, but that didn't work either. I then found that there was a
space at the end of the folder name. I then tried all the CMD options
again using a space, still no luck. Then I finally stumbled upon this
solution:

Open CMD and then type:

rd /s "\?D:badfolderpath "

example:

rd /s "\?D:Sharedatafolder1folder2 "

note the space after folder2 as per the space in the folder name.

Obviously D: is the drive that has the folder on it.

In my case there was no space in the folder name, just a stubborn folder left on a failed Teracopy run.

But my folder had several folders inside it that could not be deleted.

This did the trick.

My run was:
rd /s "\?G:BackupsMacMiniBADFOLDER"

Tip: You can use TAB to autocomplete the Folder names in cmd.

Sometimes some process may be left open preventing the deletion of the file. You can check task manager and kill the tasks you have started.

Sometimes explorer.exe itself is preventing the deletion. You can restart explorer:

• Go to "Task Manager"


• End Task "Explorer"


• File -> "Run new task"


• Type "explorer" to run explorer task again


• Check the file is gone