Windows cannot delete folder

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title: 'Windows cannot delete folder'
date: '2012-12-07T21:43:38-06:00'
status: publish
permalink: /windows-cannot-delete-folder
author: admin
excerpt: ''
type: post
id: 160
category:
    - Windows
tag: []
post_format: []

I recently had a folder in Windows 7 64-bit that I could not delete. The message was "cannot find this item".

Although I could see the folder in Linux I still could not delete it. It was possible to delete the folder from the Windows command prompt and using the Windows short name.

Looking at the folder from Linux:

$ ls -l
ls: cannot access ubuntu110.10 : No such file or directory
total 20
drwxrwx--- 1 root vboxsf 4096 Oct 30 20:10 u12.10
?????????? ? ? ? ? ? ubuntu110.10
drwxrwx--- 1 root vboxsf 4096 Nov 3 11:13 Ubuntu_12.04

Use dir /x to see short name:

E:\disks>dir /x
 Volume in drive E is DATA
 Volume Serial Number is 1181-C4F1

Directory of E:\disks

12/08/2012 10:18 AM <DIR> .
12/08/2012 10:18 AM <DIR> ..
10/30/2012 07:10 PM <DIR> u12.10
12/08/2012 10:30 AM <DIR> UBUNTU~1.10 ubuntu110.10
...
 0 File(s) 0 bytes
 8 Dir(s) 69,553,127,424 bytes free

Remove folder using short name:

E:\disks>rmdir UBUNTU~1.10