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DJSoul

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Cannot see hidden sub-folders and alphabetic files on external usb drive

OK, This should be a simple one for you guys.

I have a Maxtor One Touch 4 External USB back up drive connected to my Vista 64 bit system. On the external drive I have a folder I use for manual back-ups separate to the automated back up program.

The folder is about 5gb and has about 10 sub folders which all contain photos & videos, there are also a few thousand photos contained in the main folder itself.

I have just noticed that certain files and all sub-folders are now invisible and I cannot access them through windows explorer. If I try to copy an alphabetical named file from my main harddrive to the external drive (which i know i exists in the location on the external drive), I get the normal windows overwrite warning even though the file is not visible.

The strange thing is, only files which have a numerical file name (i.e 34556.jpg) are visible in the main folder; only the Alphabetical files (i.e. photo.jpg) appear to be invisible. All sub folders are invisible also.

The error seems to only apply to this folder only, I can see alphabetical files and sub folders in the back-up locations user by maxtor program.

I have also unplugged the drive and tried on a XP Pro machine, and there is no change.

I am currently running a data recovery program to see if it can retrieve the invisible files etc.
http://www.z-a-recovery.com/download.htm

Any help would be appreciated.

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akrdm
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DJSoul

ASKER

Thanks for your responses

akdrm - I enabled the viewing of hidden files and folders and found a file on the root of the external drive called "ehthumbs_vista". I deleted this file, rebooted and the problem remains.

dbrunton - Please can you give step by step instructions as I am not familiar with command line actions.

From the K:\Pictures folder I tried the "attrib" and i now get a warning "The file or folder K:\$Mft is unreadable or currupt - Please run the chkdsk utility"

The data recovery program shows the files as restorable.


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Thanks for your help.