Weird PC Problem

[Methais]

This is a weird one. For some reason, a lot of my files and folders aren't showing up in Windows Explorer, but the files are still there. They're not hidden I checked that, but...well here's an example.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a162/DoyleHargraves/01.jpg

There should be several subfolders in this folder (D:\Data\Jokes), but only one is showing up.

However, if I click Start -> Run, if it's a file I've used recently, I can still open it, even though it's from one of the folders that isn't showing up (In this case, D:\Data\Jokes\ASCII)

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a162/DoyleHargraves/02Run.jpg

And as you can see, the file still opens, so it's still there.
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a162/DoyleHargraves/03File.jpg

I just have no clue why my folders aren't showing up. I ran a virus scan just now and got rid of some minor trojan it picked up on the C drive, and ran a Spyware scan and cleaned some stuff up, but the problem still persists.

I'm clueless, I've never seen this happen before. Anyone got any ideas?

Also when I'm in explorer and I click the D:\Data folder, it tends to lag for a bit, making me stare at the hourglass for 10 seconds or so, then sometimes I'll get a box saying "The disk in drive D is not formatted, would you like to format now?" I'm only getting the disk format error when trying to access D:\Data\FFXI Screenshots, which is weird because that's all that is in the folder is a bunch of screenshots from FFXI.

This hard drive is only a couple months old.

[Bobmuhthol]

It would be super awesome if those screenshots weren't compressed.

Though I can't say I have an explanation for that.

[Methais]

Blame photobucket and/or Irfanview for that. There's not really any detailed stuff to be seen in the screenshots anyway.

[Bobmuhthol]

You can change the max size in Photobucket, for the record.

It doesn't sound like a virus because it would be totally useless. The drive might be physically fucked up in a few sectors, which you should run a CHKDSK for. You could also try doing a system restore for the Explorer problem. If it's at all possible, you could remove the D: drive, connect it to another machine, and try to open the FFXI Screenshots folder. If it doesn't work on a second system, you can bet that it's a physical problem with the hard drive.

[Celephais]

I've had similar issues with a corrupted file, because it's trying to generate a thumbnail... I bet if you used the cmd prompt you could go into the folder and delete the offending file (move files one by one out of the folder somewhere else until things work, process of eliminate).

[Methais]

Hmm. I think I'm just gonna take the simpler route and format the drive. There's no OS on it and all my important stuff from there is saved on an external drive already. Thanks for the info folks.

[Celephais]

Seriously... if you haven't started the format already, go to run, type in "Cmd" hit enter, then type:

rmdir "D:\Data\FFXI Screenshots"

You should be golden (it was a corrupted file). At least enough to check to make sure you got everything you want backed up.

[fallenSaint]

Hmm. I think I'm just gonna take the simpler route and format the drive. There's no OS on it and all my important stuff from there is saved on an external drive already. Thanks for the info folks.



That would be the best call, run the virus check on the backed up info as well though. Even though your scanner saw it and supposedly cleaned it never guarantees its been fixed since it already started spreading its probably effed some windows components.

[Methais]

Seriously... if you haven't started the format already, go to run, type in "Cmd" hit enter, then type:

rmdir "D:\Data\FFXI Screenshots"

You should be golden (it was a corrupted file). At least enough to check to make sure you got everything you want backed up.

Tried to format the drive and it never got past 19%, gave up on it for now.

Tried what you said anyway (the format didn't seem to delete anything, that I've noticed anyway) and it said "The system cannot find the file specified."

I tried to copy some things over before the initial format, and it was unable to read from the source (source being the D drive), so this thing is taking a serious dump. Fortunately I have everything on an external drive, and Windows is installed on the other HD, so there's not really any data to be lost to begin with.

Do you think this is the whole hard drive going out, or just some bad sectors? If bad sectors, what can I do about it other than replacing the drive?

[Bobmuhthol]

You can change the max size in Photobucket, for the record.

It doesn't sound like a virus because it would be totally useless. The drive might be physically fucked up in a few sectors, which you should run a CHKDSK for. You could also try doing a system restore for the Explorer problem. If it's at all possible, you could remove the D: drive, connect it to another machine, and try to open the FFXI Screenshots folder. If it doesn't work on a second system, you can bet that it's a physical problem with the hard drive.
.

[Methais]

Oh yeah, right. I'll do that in a bit.