Windows Explorer Indexing, Drives Sometimes Disappear

Hello,

For the past few weeks Windows Explorer has been acting strangely on my desktop PC. I am running Windows 7 Pro SP1 and have all the latest patches installed. I have a lot of disk drives in my system:

* two SSD drives
* 4 internal HDD drives
* 3 networked drives on a SBS2003 server
* 3 more networked drives on a NAS device

Here is what happens. Sometimes, when I open Windows Explorer all I see is my library and maybe my desktop (see attached photo). None of the other drives show. When this happens, I usually have to log out then log back in for everything to pop up. Other times, I click on the local drive and I see a status bar at the top of explorer (where the directory shows) "scan" the drive. It looks like it is indexing the drive or something similar.

Any ideas on what is causing this? Let me know if you need any other info.

Thanks,
Chip

P.S. I ran a virus scan with F-prot as well as a quick scan with Malware Bytes this morning. Both scans did not find a problem.

 

I was plagued with the same error two or three months ago. I found that starting the computer up from an earlier session caused this error, it required my completely cutting off the power to computer and hard drives connected and by switching the power on again it appeared to clear error and all HD then appeared in my computer window. I did trace that the USB 4 connector hub was replaced and for some reason switching around the USB hard drive improved results, further the USB hub was also switched around the computer mounted USB sockets. I have six USB sockets on my HP computer, and have found out that various hardware appear to work best by trying out each USB socket in turn. I find that USB can be over loaded if hubs are used to increase additional hardware, this can be overcome by installing an additional card (4 or 6 USB sockets)on the motherboard.
I do not profess this a cure to your problem, it certainly finally cured my problem.

 

It may simply means that Windows is waiting for some drives to connect to.

Always switch on your NAS & server well before switching on your computer. I believe their is a registry hack for XP to not wait for network drives but I am not too sure about Win 7.

 

Probably along the same line as the other suggestions...

Have you set any drive letters yourself in Disk Management/Map Network Drive or do you just let Windows allocate the drive letter? Try setting the drive letter yourself. Put them further back (like drive S:, T: U: etc). I expect Windows is having trouble setting the drive letter (when some start up faster than others).

 

Thanks - I will try your solution shortly and let you know what happens. I do use a number of USB ports for hard drives and maybe this will help. I also want to look into my drive lettering.

 

Hi,

The answer is yes and no. I set some of the letters myself, but not all. Here is a listing of the drives that show up in Explorer with comments:

C: this is the boot drive and it is an SSD
D: this is an internal HDD
E: this is another internal HDD
F: this is a second SSD internal drive
G: this is the first of three mapped networked drives, it resides on a SBS 2003 server
J: this is the first of two internal HDDs connected via an Xdock
M: this is the second of three networked drives, it resides on a SBS 2003 server
O: this is the third of three mapped networked drives, it resides on a SBS 2003 server
P: this is the first of three mapped drives from my NAS
S: this is the second of three mapped drives from my NAS
V: this is the third of three mapped drives from my NAS
Z: this is the second of two internal HDDs connected via an Xdock

I also sometimes put a thumb drive into one of the many open USB ports. The SBS 2003 server is always on. The NAS does go into sleep mode if it is not accessed for 5-10 minutes. It is rarely accessed so is often in sleep mode.

Given the above, do you recommend any changes?

 

OK - I shut down my computer and turned off the PSU for 30 seconds. Then I rebooted. I was able to click on all the drives without it doing the scanning. When I clicked on Favorites it did scan that. Is this normal for it to scan favorites?

 

If your NAS is in sleep mode, it would take some time to wake up when it receives a request. So the delay you are facing seems to be normal.

If the NAS is not in sleep mode, then also do you have problems ?

 

Unfortunately, the NAS is in sleep mode 95% of the time. It is used to store home movies, photos, etc and is rarely accessed. I could set it to be on all the time, but it would waste a lot of power, generate more heat in my server closet, and put wear and tear on the system. I also do not want to "unmap the NAS drives ".

I found the following post that has a bunch of info on Windows Explorer settings.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2863-windows-explorer-taskbar-icon-change-open-target.html

The part I found useful was this:

Using the Explorer.exe Command Line Syntax/:


%windir%\explorer.exe [/n][/e][,/root],X,[[/Select],Y]

X - Secifies the object, and optionally with sub-object Y.
/e - Uses Windows Explorer view. Shows the left Windows Explorer tree view in the navigation pane together with the right pane in list view.
/n - Opens a new window in a new process for each item selected, even if the new window duplicates a window that is already open.
/root - Will have Explorer.exe explore the root object X and objects belonging to X. On the other hand, when the /root switch is not present, Explorer.exe explores the object X, its children, and other Explorer objects as well.
/Select - Puts the focus on a file or folder. The parent folder is opened and the specified object is selected.

I changed Explorer to open to C:\ and not Library. I wonder if I should add /root to the command? Would that prevent it from exploring the NAS drives when they are not selected?

 

Drive letters...

You don't specify which ones have been allocated by you or Windows. You list D:, E:, F:, and G: as allocated. Windows allocates the first available drive, which may not correspond to your previous allocation, then things can start to get murky.

You should try to set drive allocation yourself. Not at the upper end (D:, E:, F:,G: ), at the lower end, so that Windows can take the upper end if it needs to.

I recommend avoiding using Z:, it can sometimes be used by programs as a "temporary drive" (from what I have seen).

Matt

 

In my computer Windows has allocated :
C: drive, backup of contents saved on C drive.
D: part of C drive, backup of computer facory settings.
E: internal multimedia Optical Drive. Play/Record DVD's.