I've a Lacie 250 GB external hard drive.
In one folder in perticular i have 440 odd folders. However when i go to open and look at the folders through Explorer it only displays the first 20 or so folders. If you type in the top navigation bar the name of one of the missing folders it'll open it and work normally. My problem is that explorer won't just display the folder and files that are there...

Does anyone know of this problem or it's possible solution. I have files and folders i can't remember the name of I need to get to but I can't see them or remember the exact location.

many thanks
signal

Do you not get a scroll bar on the right side of the window?

Cannot you click within the window & scroll?

The scroll bar appears if i have enough files. i can click inside (right and left) i can resize et al. It seems to be to something specific to the directory structure and not related to an actual windows problem...

Another thing, if i type the correct name of the folder (that's not visable) it'll navigate to it. then i can cut/copy the files to another location where they remain visable.

I have all hidden files showing and do not understand why it won't show files that are there.

it'll only display files alphabetically and new files disappear if named outside what appears. all v strange...

Does Windows Explorer work properly on your internal drive?

yes windows and all files run perfectly on internal drive. It must be something to do with the external drive but it seems like such a weird problem. I've tried using easy recovery professional but to no avail. it doesn't see the files (that are there!) any more than windows explorer.

Been looking at the LaCie site:

http://www.lacie.com/

What is your exact model?

Did you ever have the drive viewable or has this always been a problem?

How did you format the drive? Did you use NTFS?

What happens when you open Disk Management:

Start/Run/ diskmgmt.msc

Right click on the drive & then click Explore.

Both drives are formated in NTFS.

When i run disk management it opens and runs as normal, it displays that both drives are healthy.

when i explore the drive it brings up explorer and same problem persists.

My Model is the Lacie 250Gb D2.

the problem occured over the past month or less and the drive was viewable and fine before hand.

Lacie don't seem to be able to help their site faq, about data retrieval/problems, but i'll try and email them to see what they suggest as the data is still there but not viewable. could this problem be related to hardware or software and is there an easy method to determine this? I'm not looking for someone to blame here just a solution. If i need a new drive (hardware) then I assume better to determine this sooner rather than later.

many thanks so far for the help...

Sounds like a software problem to me.
Do you remember any possible coinciding events with the origins of this problem?
Any other new hardware or software?

From LaCie I see this one update:

http://www.lacie.com/support/drivers/

Device Updater 2.02 for Windows (May 4, 2005)

Maybe worth a try. Read the Read Me for details & risks.

no hardware but quite a bit of software none installed on the external drive and all not conincidental to the problem.

one thing when i used to unplug and plugin the device it used to bring up the autoplay scan then ask me what i wanted to do. it no longer does this i'll try and test on another comuter soon.

I used the update which was successful but it didn't help the problem...