IT bods help please – "missing" folders

On XP SP3 and a lot my folders cannot be browsed i.e. I cannot click on “Shared Documents” and drill down to certain folders in Explorer. I can however search for and find the folders and indeed the files within. I’ve checked the folder properties and they are not hidden. Any ideas?

isnt it something to do with the fileshares? Some shares are only for the computer to use to get to a particular user folder, for backwards compatability or something…

…or is that just in Vista…?

shine the cougar light up into the sky…

as is often the case, it is something that never used to be like this. Something has changed recently

Yeah I love modern technology – apparently computers can only do what they are told to do.

Yeah right, we know they are secretly plotting against us and will soon overthrow us. Your problem tortoise – just a little piece of the jigsaw.

mmm, is that pointed sarcasm or knowing sympathy?

Just in case it is the former – and I need to defend my pride – remember that modern PCs get automatically updated over t’internet, so it is not uncommon for something to work differently from the day before for “no apparent reason”.

…if it was knowing sympathy, thanks 🙂

remember that modern PCs get automatically updated over t’internet, so it is not uncommon for something to work differently from the day before for “no apparent reason”.

I tell you what, go and find a PC support guy, and find out how many problems he’s dealt with in the last week that have been caused by automatic updates and then ask how many problems he’s dealt with that have been caused by users cocking about with something they don’t understand. 😉

To be frank I don’t give a monkeys whether the culprit is me or “automatic updates”. I work with support bods day in day out so know only too well what end users can be like. I’m just after a solution, not sly digs 😉

Somehow managed to hide “system folders” ?

Explorer->Tools->Folder Options->View (ensure “Show hidden files and folders” is checked)

allthepies, that was my first port-of-call, but thanks anyway. Keep ’em coming please

chkdsk.

When you say they “can’t be browsed”, what exactly happens?

permissions problem?

Occasionally we lose folders on our network drives at work. It usually happens because someone divvy has tried to double click a folder icon but instead managed to drag/drop the folder into another one.

Open the explorer / my computer window and check the folder you’ve lost isn’t in one of folders next door to where it should be!

Or, if you’ve found it in search, check the location in properties.

I’m assuming that we’re talking about “shared folders” on one PC here rather than on another one across the network. Really need to clarify this before going any further, are you talking about network shares on a remote PC?

Hi

It is a local folder. My Shared Documents are on a separate physical drive in my PC. The offending folder(s) are within Shared Music within the Shared Docs. If I open up Shared Music within Explorer all folders up to those beginning with “K” are visible and then I can see individual files. My music folders are organised by artist.

At first I thought I’d accidently deleted/moved those from “K” onwards, but when I did a search (using Google Desktop) for, for example, Killing In the Name By R[/u]age Against the Machine, not only did it find the file, but I could open and view the folder (album) in Explorer (right click -> open containing folder). I could even go up a level to “Artist” folder, but if I then went back up another level (still in Explorer) to “Shared Music” I could then no longer view the folder for “Rage Against the Machine”.

Hope this makes sense and hope someone can help. Everything works, but this is very odd

sounds like the view is gubbed maybe…

screenshot?

Screen shot below

Maybe your PC has a bad taste filter that you seem to have got around one time too many.

Woah. </Ted>

I’d definitely do a chkdsk as a first step.

So do you know where the folders that can’t be seen are located?

If not open up a command prompt and run the DIR command to locate the file
Dos Command Ref here

no such thing as bad taste, just different taste 🙂
Only John Peel had more eclectic tastes than me

DaRC L. Yes. Basically below *ahem* KT Tunstall there should be dozens more folders. The files within work because I listen to them day in day out.

If it helps, the folders and files are backed up OK to my external drive and I can navigate them no probs

Use the DIR command to locate the files – it might indicate why they can’t be found (such as a change in location or status i.e. hidden or system)

I’m assuming they’re on the C: drive so can you navigate to the files via your logon id in C:\Documents and Settings\logon id\My Documents\My Music (assuming the folders are in there)

run chkdsk

or restore from the back up.

I’m assuming they’re on the C: drive

Nope, on an S drive which is a separate physical disc in the PC i.e. s:\shared documents\shared music and no I cannot navigate to them that way.

OK, will try some of these things later.
Thanks

I restored to my desktop OK, but when I then tried to copy the restored files back into “Shared Music” the same thing happened again. Nothing after “K”.

I also had some cyclic redundancy errors. This is a disk on it’s way out, isn’t it?! 😯

Do I have to say “chkdsk” a third time?

Double-click My Computer, right-click the S drive and go to Properties. Go to Tools, and click Check Now.

As you’re getting CRC errors, I’d suggest ticking both boxes and then press Start. Go make coffee, this will take a while.

I know I know, but I wanted to do the quicker/easier stuff first 😀

I assume I should stop/close anything that might be accessing that disk first.

Ta

maybe you’ve made them hidden files?

Tools –> Folder Options –> View Tab

Check the hidden files and folders option?

Easier than checkdisk? 😯

If the disk is in use, you’ll be prompted to schedule a scan for next time you reboot (so answer yes and then reboot it). I don’t think I’ve ever seen this not happen on a system disk, but with a slave drive you may well get away with doing it live.

Aren’t Shared Folders actually a shell folder, so it doesn’t actually exist, it is just a collection of folders. A bit like program files in W7.

I see you said you’ve tried google desktop to search for the files/folders, try using windows inbuilt one, I think the google desktop has to update its owns indexes before it will recognise them.

I could be talking codswallop tho.

Yep. Well, kinda. “shared documents” maps directly to c:\documents and settings\all users\documents. The OP could look to see what he sees there, but TBH I think the root cause is still going to be corruption.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Stuff like hidden folders I’d already tried to no avail and a long time ago I remapped all the document folders to a separate drive to the OS, so c:\documents and settings is irrelevant.

chkdsk seems to have done the trick – there were lots of orphaned files, howsoever that may have happened. It took a couple of hours. Thanks Cougar. Third time lucky, eh? 😉