Fix "Could not Find this Item" when Deleting in Windows 7

If you've been using Windows for as long as I had, you had probably run into your share of weird error messages. One that I got recently when trying to delete a file is:

Could not the Find this item. This was no longer located in X. Verify the item ' s location and try again.

This is a strange problem because I didn ' t know if the file actually existed or not. Was it already deleted or not? And why is Windows showing the file located in that folder if it really wasn ' t there? Kind of Made me wonder if my hard drive is running OK or not.

The first thing I did is to run a chkdsk expecting some hard drive errors. Oddly enough, it showed, the hard drive is perfectly fine. I also ran some additional diagnostics just to make sure the hard drive is functioning properly, which then made me Reali Ze It is some issue with Windows 7.

After playing around with various solutions, I is able to delete the "missing" files. Hopefully, one of the methods below would work for you.

Method 1–f5 to Refresh

The first thing to try are to simply press F5 and viewing the folder in Explorer. F5 refreshes the view and if it is stuck for some reason, those files could just disappear on their own. If F5 doesn ' t do anything, you should also try to restart the computer once and see if that removes the previously deleted Files.

Another thing to the look at are how much RAM are available on your system. Some people had written that if they had numerous RAM intensive applications running at the same time, this problem had been seen to occur. Try closing a few programs, etc and press F5 to refresh the folder.

Method 2–delete file/folder Using Command Prompt

If you is unable to remove the file using Explorer, you might has better luck using the command prompt. Open a command prompt by going to Start and typing in CMD.

Now browse to the folder where the unusual files is located. You can go to the root of the "drive by" typing in CD/, followed by CD FolderName to navigate into directories. Once You is there, type in Dir-get a listing of all the files. To delete a file type del ' filename ' like below:

If you were trying to delete a folder instead of a file and the commands you'll use was rmdir instead of Del. Note that you H Ave to put quotes around the file name if it had spaces in it. If this didn ' t work, you can also try another method by deleting the file using DOS 8.3 file name instead of the normal fi Le name. Instead of typing dir, type in dir/x and "ll see this:

To delete the item, type in the 8.3 name, which are my case was thisis~1.txt. Make sure your type the first part of all caps. The file extension can in lowercase. Hopefully, that'll get rid of your lost file.

Method 3–rename Using Command Prompt

Very similar to Method 2, but instead of the deleting, you can try renaming. Some people can ' t even delete the file or folder using the command prompt and this could be caused by having a really long n Ame for the File/folder or has some strange characters in the name. Anyway, the command is simply:

ren olderfoldername newfoldername

As in Method 2, you want-to-do-a dir/x to get the 8.3 filename and use that for the older folder name. Then use a short name for the new folder name. Once it is renamed and then you should being able to delete it using Explorer or the command prompt.

Method 4–create Temporary Folder

The other thing your can try that have had some success is to create a new folder and then drag the odd into the The new folder and then to delete this newly created folder with the files in it. For whatever reason, moving the "files out of" their current folder seems to make them deletable again.

Method 5–use Delinvfile Tool

If Nothing else would delete the file, then you can use a free tool called Delinvfile that does just that:deletes invalid Files in Windows Vista and 7.

http://www.purgeie.com/delinv/

That ' s about it! I really could not the find any other a-to-get rid of those pesky invalid files! If you have a question or a different solution, post a comment! enjoy!

Fix "Could not Find this Item" when Deleting in Windows 7