Win7. I have a folder on one of my HDDs that was working fine when I had Linux installed but now that I have reinstalled Win7, the folder shows empty (no big deal) and when I try to delete it, it says it can't because it's not found. (I swear. It's RIGHT THERE. I can see it. ) I can't move it, rename it, add or subtract anything to it. I get the same error message every time. I've tried enabling unrestricted/super administrator privileges but still can't delete it as the computer still thinks it's not there. I've rebooted, too.

EDIT: I just realized there's a colon ( in the folder name (which was allowed under Linux but not under Windows). I can't rename the folder to get rid of the colon. Might or might not be the problem?

How can I delete this folder?

[This message has been edited by Monkeyman (edited 07-25-2016).]

I've had this happen with a folder with a space trailing the end of it. I used the workarounds here to remove the folder.

http://superuser.com/questi...ning-trailing-spaces

It's always a good idea to have a Linux live CD handy to do the things that Windoze will not or cannot do. Ubuntu is a good choice for this.
Make an Ubuntu live disk, boot it, then rename or delete the folder as necessary.

I'll have to find my Linux DVD. Nothing else is working (7 Zip/WinRAR/etc).

if you can't remove it, you could always just hide it so you can't see it..

quote Originally posted by Jonesy: if you can't remove it, you could always just hide it so you can't see it..

Nope. Can't do anything with it. Computer says it's not there.

Try booting it up in Linux of some variety. And then changing the name so that it can be recognized in Windows. I have a bootable USB stick that I can start any computer up in Ubuntu. I believe there are other versions of Linux you can do that too.

Something just occured to me.
What filesystem is on the drive in question? NTFS or EXT4? or something else?
It used to be that Windoze did not play nice with anything other that FAT or NTFS. You used to have to install a utility on win to read other filesystems and some of those utilities were not able to write or delete.

quote Originally posted by williegoat: What filesystem is on the drive in question? NTFS or EXT4? or something else?

Good idea but the drive is formatted in NTFS. That one pesky folder is the only thing on the drive that is messed up. The rest of the folders/files work as they should. It's got to be that colon. I'm off Wed/Thurs so I'll boot up with one of my Linux discs and see if I can change the folder name that way.

quote Originally posted by Monkeyman: Good idea but the drive is formatted in NTFS. That one pesky folder is the only thing on the drive that is messed up. The rest of the folders/files work as they should. It's got to be that colon. I'm off Wed/Thurs so I'll boot up with one of my Linux discs and see if I can change the folder name that way.

Have you tried booting in 'safe mode command prompt' mode and deleting the corrupted folder from the command prompt?

[This message has been edited by Darth Fiero (edited 07-27-2016).]

Not very good at that kind of thing.