Bizarre external hard drive issue

[Pukka312]

Ok, so my external hard drive recently stopped allowing me to open my folders. I can see my folders, but there is a small blue arrow on each folder (like when you've copied a folder) but I can't open the folders. I freaked out of course, because I have no idea how to access my photos...but what is weird is that I hooked up my husband's external hard drive the same day and his responded the same way. All his folders had the little blue arrow and wouldn't open. Anyone have a similar issue in the past? Is there a simple way to resolve it?
P.S. tried iron an alternate computer as well and still wouldn't open

 

[Pukka312]

Ok, the P.S. is supposed to say tried "it on" - not iron

 

[Light Guru]

Ok, so my external hard drive recently stopped allowing me to open my folders. I can see my folders, but there is a small blue arrow on each folder (like when you've copied a folder) but I can't open the folders. I freaked out of course, because I have no idea how to access my photos...but what is weird is that I hooked up my husband's external hard drive the same day and his responded the same way. All his folders had the little blue arrow and wouldn't open. Anyone have a similar issue in the past? Is there a simple way to resolve it?
P.S. tried iron an alternate computer as well and still wouldn't open

Mac or Windows computer?

 

[Pukka312]

Ok, so my external hard drive recently stopped allowing me to open my folders. I can see my folders, but there is a small blue arrow on each folder (like when you've copied a folder) but I can't open the folders. I freaked out of course, because I have no idea how to access my photos...but what is weird is that I hooked up my husband's external hard drive the same day and his responded the same way. All his folders had the little blue arrow and wouldn't open. Anyone have a similar issue in the past? Is there a simple way to resolve it?
P.S. tried iron an alternate computer as well and still wouldn't open

Mac or Windows computer?

Windows... My iMac died on me 5 months ago (*tear)

 

[Pukka312]

And I use the external hard drive on a weekly basis...it had worked fine 2 days prior to its failure.

It may be important to mention I was not using the software program it came with because on a previous laptop, it would not let me select which files and folders to back-up, (it was all or nothing) therefore I was advised by the manufacturer of the external hard drive to use it in the same respect that I would use a USB...so for a year I have simply been copying folders to the drive under 'my computer'. When I was unable to open the folders last week, I tried installing the software to see if I could pull the data that way. The retrieval program still functions and pulls my folders that i archived a year ago. Unfortunately recent work I was saving my photos under a main folder and not the subfolders utilized within the software parameters, so no recent photos were available for formal retrieval. (my bad I guess for utilizing a short cut. There were so many subfolders and I didnt see the point of burying my files, so I left my photos under a primary folder...which doesn't appear in my actual retrieval mode of the software)

 

[manaheim]

I googled a bit to see if I could find anything. I saw some references to bad sectors requiring a checkdisk, also some stuff about Norton. Can you post up a screenshot of what you're seeing?

 

[Pukka312]

I googled a bit to see if I could find anything. I saw some references to bad sectors requiring a checkdisk, also some stuff about Norton. Can you post up a screenshot of what you're seeing?

Ok, I can post a screenshot later today when I get near wifi (only have internet on my iPad and unfortunately the damn thing stopped syncing to my computer...I know, I seem to have all the luck). And I also googled and saw something about norton, but I assume that's not the issue. Though I hate Norton and would love to blame them for the problem, the norton software has been on this laptop all along and have never had an issue (not to mention I refused to pay the insane renewal rate and therefore can't blame Norton software updates, since it's been expired for months.) But will post a screenshot later this afternoon...it will likely be morning for you if you are in the U.S. (it's not even 9am yet for me here).

 

[bratkinson]

It sounds like when you did your last copy to the external drive, you simply created a shortcut that pointed to the folder you copied. That'll happen if one is not careful.

I had it happen to me a couple of weeks ago. But when a folder with more than 150 RAW pictures at 35mb each copied in less than a second, I knew something was wrong. Sure enough, all it did was to create a shortcut on the external drive, pointing back to the original folder on my hard drive.

 

[Pukka312]

Ok, so basically, before when I would plug in my external hard drive, I would have 3 folders and 2 application icons...where all of these other folders and files came from I don't know. Either way, I am not sure why every single icon except one looks like a shortcut... how could I have created shortcuts on my external hard drive, and where would the originals go? I certainly don't have enough space on my computer to have reverse transferred. But as you can see on the folder I've highlighted, when you see the file size in the bottom left, it certainly appears like all my files are gone. Right???

 

[manaheim]

Oh. Those are just shortcuts.

Right click on one and select properties and it will tell you where it points to.

I do see a folder with a lock on it too... pure speculation here but did you use that smartware software on another machine, or reinstall this one and have not yet installed smartware? Might be why you can't see folders you usually see.

Ah... yes...

It may be important to mention I was not using the software program it came with because on a previous laptop, it would not let me select which files and folders to back-up, (it was all or nothing) therefore I was advised by the manufacturer of the external hard drive to use it in the same respect that I would use a USB...so for a year

Though if you've been doing this for a bit and it suddenly changed that seems odd... but the fact that your husbands (I'm assuming same drive, same software?) is doing it too...

There's obviously some key bit you're not telling us (not intentionally, mind you... you just left something out somewhere and didn't realize it), but I bet if you install that software you'll see your files.

 

[Mully]

Looks like these are alias file folders..... click on one to get info about the file... if it is 200k or less it is empty and only an alias file in which case you will need to search for the "real" file folders. Also see how much disk space is being used on that drive. It is difficult to tell where the original files are.

 

[Pukka312]

Oh. Those are just shortcuts.

Right click on one and select properties and it will tell you where it points to.

I do see a folder with a lock on it too... pure speculation here but did you use that smartware software on another machine, or reinstall this one and have not yet installed smartware? Might be why you can't see folders you usually see.

Ah... yes...

It may be important to mention I was not using the software program it came with because on a previous laptop, it would not let me select which files and folders to back-up, (it was all or nothing) therefore I was advised by the manufacturer of the external hard drive to use it in the same respect that I would use a USB...so for a year

Though if you've been doing this for a bit and it suddenly changed that seems odd... but the fact that your husbands (I'm assuming same drive, same software?) is doing it too...

There's obviously some key bit you're not telling us (not intentionally, mind you... you just left something out somewhere and didn't realize it), but I bet if you install that software you'll see your files.

The first thing I tried was installing the software and try to retrieve the photos through that method but the only photos I could find were the ones initially backed up when I first bought the drive (and at that point realized I had no way to manually select which files to back up, so stopped utilizing that method and went the back door route of copying through my computer). I couldn't find any of my photos for the last year when I went through the standard retrieval.

And maybe your right, maybe I've forgotten a critical thing. It just seemed odd because I've done nothing different in how I save or copy, and then bam! I open the drive and see this mess. I also keep the external hard drive hidden so nobody decides to "play" with it. No idea why my husband's did the same thing (and he has yet to realize he has probably lost his files as well because I tried to show him but he never looked closely.) Regardless, it sucks if I've somehow lost everything. I'm fairly computer savvy so I'm struggling to comprehend how I could have inadvertantly caused such a catastrophic errror.

I tried to search a few named files within the software and it came up empty.

 

[manaheim]

Does your husbands drive work on a different computer?

What do you mean hidden??? Did you select to hide the actual drive or folders in the software? Have you turned on the option to view hidden folders? (Click start, type "folder options", run that util and select the option to show hidden folders)

 

[Mully]

Did you check to see how much info is on the drive ...this will tell you if lost or hidden.

 

[IByte]

If its win7 machine: control panel >folder options >scroll down a little check show hidden folders> connect your external if not already done so.


PS: this will work Vista, and XP, give or take a step or two.