Windows XP Desktop Search Problem

Hi everyone,

I have a windows desktop search problem. I can open the Search Results window from the Search command on the Start button, however it never finds any results for Drive C:. When I search for a file that I know is located on the C: drive as well as my Backup Drive, it only finds the file on the Backup Drive.

Drive C: is the only drive that always comes up with "Search is complete. There are no results to display." The search runs without listing where it is looking.

The search tool has no problems searching all the other drives on the system.

Any ideas as to why this is doing this? Could it be a Registry problem or a missing index file?

Thanks for the help.

Larry

 

Hi Larry welcome to WindowsBBS

Personally I don't rate the search feature of XP very much, I and likely others have had similar issues to yours.

You could try a 3rd party alternative (eg Agent Ransack)

 

Thanks wildfire for your quick response.

I will look into this 3rd party software as a possible solution if I don't receive any other ideas as how to resolve my problem.

Thanks again,

 

AgentRansack is the tool of choice for sure!

 

I assume you choose only your C drive in the drop down menu in the drive options field, yes?

Longshot, but I use a lovely little German app I unearthed called Revosleep to put my backup drive to sleep when I boot into my go to drive. You will need a rar opener to open this app, but there are many free ones on the net.

http://revosleep.realspooky.de/

(There is a cute little music track on this site, do not let it shock you.) Obviously get the one for your platform, 32 or 64 bit.

You might want to download and install this app When you first run it, it will ask you to choose which drive or drives to put to sleep; choose yr backup drive or drives, and then ask Revo to do just that. You will get balloon messages over the icon in yr systray telling you what Revo is doing....and, when you right click on that icon you can also wake the drive or drives up, of course.

Windows will no longer see the backup drive which will no longer be spinning. Then you might try to do a search for the THEN only drive available in search, yr C drive. Might be an interesting experiment!

 

Hi,

I have installed Agent Ransack and have no problems searching for any files on the system now.

Since the Backup Drive is external, I plan on turning off that drive and re-starting the computer to see if this may have been the issue.

Thanks for all the help.