1

I have a single folder that is exhibiting some strange behavior in the explorer

my directory looks something like this Documents/Parent/StrangeFolder/ChildFolders

When I try to open any of the ChildFolders with a double click nothing happens. when I am displaying the contents of StrangeFolder and I try to any of the ChildFolders I can't. It simply changes the folder name to be an edit control with the entire name hightlighted, but I can't change the cursor selection or type anything.

If I try to delete a folder from Parent nothing appears to happen, but I can no longer open the deleted folder. Only after refreshing the view does the folder disappear.

I have tried renaming StrangeFolder. I have tried copying and removing the original.

This is the only folder where I see the behavior happening. It seemed to happen after I messed things up and tried doing a rmdir on the command line to remove StrangeFolder and create it again. rmdir gave me some errors about it not being empty so I think I tried doing rmdir -f -r to try to make it remove the whole thing, but I don't remember.

MarkB42
  • 245
  • 1
  • 2
  • 7

2 Answers2

3

It appears to be a corruption in the File Allocation Table (or how that thing called in an NTFS partition) where it thinks a file is there while it actually isn't. The only way to get rid of this is to format the drive. This does mean the entire drive will be erased, so this usually is not an option.

Maybe a chkdsk can fix it.

LPChip
  • 59,229
  • 10
  • 98
  • 140
3

I would try (in order of possible solution and complexity):

  • 1.- ScanDisk: Open Elevated Console and do (for that drive):
    chkdsk c: /f
    look if there were corrected problems by reviewing the ChkDsk log.

  • 2.- This may lack a bit of logic, but sometimes a defrag has solved me this kind of problem. According to @LPChip comment, defrag rearranges files and folders on the harddrive and then rebuilds the file allocation table.

  • 3.- Boot Linux, any BootCD (like Ubuntu)or Pendrive could do, or any Recovery CD/Pendrive (like @Active BootDisk) and try to access the folder. If there is important to recover data inside, backup it.

  • 4.- Create a partition image to some clone disk tool, like PartImage, restore it to another partition or virtual device, and try to access the folder. Some image partition tools allow data accessing without restoring it. This method worked for me some times (not very often, and I must say I am not very sure about why does it work), but it is long, a bit awkward, and requires an extra harddisk, so I only use it for important data recovery and as a last hope. @Active BootDisk wear inside some tools for this, but maybe it will require registration to be used, so I better suggest CloneZilla.

  • An extra suggestion: check SMART status of the hard disk. Folder misbehaving problems sometime precede hard disk (whether spinning or SSD) failures. I don't know if Windows reports this, but you can use AIDA64, for example (try-out version available to download).

Community
  • 1
Sopalajo de Arrierez
  • 6,603
  • 11
  • 63
  • 97
  • 1
    Good call on defrag. The reason why it works is because defrag rearranges files and folders on the harddrive and then rebuild the file allocation table. – LPChip Apr 23 '14 at 15:21
  • I did steps 1 and 2 of this. I then ran `sfc /scannow` and the problem didn't go away. A showed the IT guy at work and he right clicked on one of the folders and clicked `open folder location` and the problem went away. I also don't see the `open folder location` option in the context menu any more either. All in all the folder is fixed and I'm going to mark this as the answer. – MarkB42 Apr 23 '14 at 17:28
  • Well... computers behave sometimes like an illogical thing, you know. It is possible that step 1 or 2 solved your problem but something was left to be repaired on the next operating system reboot, so you didn't notice until much later. Anyway, if you arrive to know what in hell was the origin of the problem, please let us know. And thanks for your expanding, @LPChip. I have added it to my answer for future references. – Sopalajo de Arrierez Apr 23 '14 at 21:11