title: How to get rid of "npm ERR! EEXIST: file already exists, rename" on files that don't exist?
body: <p>This is my first actual question post. (Pls do not attack me if I do something wrong.)</p>
  
  <p>I have node 5.6.0.</p>
  
  <p>I have downloaded a JS web app for an assignment. However, I cannot actually work on the assignment because I can't get past the following error:</p>
  
  <pre><code>S:\PersonalCloud\jennylynneh\web development\code-academy\projects\project-2-beat-mix&gt;npm install
  npm WARN rollback Rolling back minimist@1.2.0 failed (this is probably harmless): EPERM: operation not permitted, lstat  'S:\PersonalCloud\jennylynneh\web development\code-academy\projects\project-2-beat-mix\node_modules\fsevents\node_modules\rc'
  npm WARN build-apis-beat-mix@1.0.0 No repository field.
  npm WARN optional SKIPPING OPTIONAL DEPENDENCY: rc@1.2.7 (node_modules\fsevents\node_modules\rc):
  npm WARN optional SKIPPING OPTIONAL DEPENDENCY: EEXIST: file already exists, rename 'S:\PersonalCloud\jennylynneh\web development\code-academy\projects\project-2-beat-mix\node_modules\fsevents\node_modules\.rc.DELETE\node_modules\minimist' -&gt; 'S:\PersonalCloud\jennylynneh\web development\code-academy\projects\project-2-beat-mix\node_modules\fsevents\node_modules\rc\node_modules\minimist'
  npm WARN optional SKIPPING OPTIONAL DEPENDENCY: File exists: S:\PersonalCloud\jennylynneh\web development\code-academy\projects\project-2-beat-mix\node_modules\fsevents\node_modules\.rc.DELETE\node_modules\minimist
  
  npm ERR! path S:\PersonalCloud\jennylynneh\web development\code-academy\projects\project-2-beat-mix\node_modules\.is-accessor-descriptor.DELETE\node_modules\kind-of
  npm ERR! code EEXIST
  npm ERR! errno -4075
  npm ERR! syscall rename
  npm ERR! EEXIST: file already exists, rename 'S:\PersonalCloud\jennylynneh\web development\code-academy\projects\project-2-beat-mix\node_modules\.is-accessor-descriptor.DELETE\node_modules\kind-of' -&gt; 'S:\PersonalCloud\jennylynneh\web development\code-academy\projects\project-2-beat-mix\node_modules\is-accessor-descriptor\node_modules\kind-of'
  npm ERR! File exists: S:\PersonalCloud\jennylynneh\web development\code-academy\projects\project-2-beat-mix\node_modules\.is-accessor-descriptor.DELETE\node_modules\kind-of
  npm ERR! Move it away, and try again.`
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I have looked and I can't find any hidden files or folders related to these errors. Here is the list of what I've done in an attempt to resolve the issue:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Spoke to someone at Codecademy regarding the assignment zip files. They could not reproduce my issue.</li>
  <li>Deleted the node_modules folder and ran <code>npm install</code> again.</li>
  <li>Ran <code>npm install</code> a second time. This resulted in a different error regarding an invalid argument "read".</li>
  <li>Deleted entire project folder, redownloaded, unzipped, and ran <code>npm install</code> again.</li>
  <li>Uninstalled node, redownloaded node, and reinstalled node. </li>
  <li>Repeated #4.</li>
  <li>Ran <code>npm cache clean --force</code> and ran <code>npm install</code> again.</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>This part was supposed to take less than 2 min but now it's taken me over 3 hours. I just don't know what else to do. Does anyone have any suggestions?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks in advance for any answers. :)</p>
  
  <p>Jen</p>