It all started in windows , where I found on a USB stick key several files with no name or with strange names, listed as created in 1980 and that could not be removed, as shown below . The error messages I got when trying to remove them were either "Permission required" or "The file name is too long". Ok, I said, I will turn to linux (actually, I just opened the MobaXterm terminal, thinking it would be a 5 seconds job).

I navigated to the incriminated folder, and just typed

ls -l

to find out that the command returned the names of all the other files in the folder, while fo the files "from the 80s" it listed the following message:

"ls: ./0: No such file or directory"

The same message was shown for all the files from the 80s. Following the suggestion from some other forum, I tried to get the inode name for the files using

ls -li

But (as expected) I got the inode number for all the files excepted those "from the 80s", for which I still got the message

ls: ./a: No such file or directory

Thinking I was smart, I tried to work on the creation date. I found a suggestion on how to remove files created before a given date here. I created the timestamp file as suggeste (with the same date); then, as a check, I just run the find part, without executing the removal part. What I got was the list of a few files older than the timestamp and a series of messages like the one shown below

find: ./a: No such file or directory

So: what should I try now? I am open to solutions in windows or ubuntu.

It all started in windows , where I found on a USB stick key several files with no name or with strange names, listed as created in 1980 and that could not be removed, as shown below . The error messages I got when trying to remove them were either "Permission required" or "The file name is too long". Ok, I said, I will turn to linux (actually, I just opened the MobaXterm terminal, thinking it would be a 5 seconds job).

I navigated to the incriminated folder, and just typed

ls -l

to find out that the command returned the names of all the other files in the folder, while fo the files "from the 80s" it listed the following message:

"ls: ./0: No such file or directory"

The same message was shown for all the files from the 80s. Following the suggestion from some other forum, I tried to get the inode name for the files using

ls -li

But (as expected) I got the inode number for all the files excepted those "from the 80s", for which I still got the message

ls: ./a: No such file or directory

Thinking I was smart, I tried to work on the creation date. I found a suggestion on how to remove files created before a given date here. I created the timestamp file as suggested (with the same date); then, as a check, I just run the find part, without executing the removal part. What I got was the list of a few files older than the timestamp and a series of messages like the one shown below

find: ./a: No such file or directory

So: what should I try now? I am open to solutions in windows or ubuntu.