My Files turn into folder


  1. Posts : 2
    Windows 10
       #1

    My Files turn into folder


    Hello. I am running Windwos 10 for almost 2 years now.
    I have 2 external Hard Drives and a lot of files on these drives appear as folders. I cannot view them, delete them, copy them or do anything else.
    Windows produce a "... is not accessible. The directory name is invalid" warning.

    - This happens only to external Drives. My internal hard files seem OK.
    - This does NOT happen to specific file types. It happens to .srt files, any kind of video files as well as any kind of image files.
    - It turns out that files are NOT corrupted. Using IObit Unlocker, I can unlock and copy my files to another path and they seem OK. But I can do it only one file at a time.

    I noticed that there is another guy with the same problem in your forum but there was no solution proposed.
    The Directory Name Is Invalid - Windows 10 Forums

    Can you please help?
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 287
    win 10 home
       #2

    Welcome to the Forum.

    This is a guess on my part, mainly because something somewhat similar happened to me. I downloaded a file to my specific C:\ folder. Of all the files in the folder, this particular file showed a folder icon from my regular file browser, XNView. Windows File Explorer allowed me to 'open' the file. But XNView wouldn't let me do anything with the file.

    My solution was to go to the Properties of the file from File Explorer and retype the filename. The folder icon changed back to the default icon in XNView, and I was able to move the file to another folder.

    So the question I would ask is, are these files pre-Windows 10 (from another system)? Perhaps using a different utf (unicode transformation format)?
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 2,899
    Windows 10 Pro for the Bro
       #3

    I'm assuming it could be something to do with Permissions.
    Maybe someone can suggest what to do to take permissions of everything, or look online on how to take permissions on files/folders.
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 2
    Windows 10
    Thread Starter
       #4

    Thanks a lot for your answers.
    Unfortunatelly, I haven't found any solutions yet, and I'm not sure whether it is Windows 10 I should blame or something else.

    After some more search, I can now tell it happens to multimedia files. (images, sound and video files). I son't know why, most of the files converted to folders have never been used for tha past 10 years.
      My Computer


  5. Posts : 654
    windows 10 Pro
       #5

    I found this on the net Folders appear empty or files won't open or are read only after moving an external drive to another PC

    Do not know if this applies to your specific case but look at it on this linkhttps://support.wdc.com/knowledgebas....aspx?ID=17632

    Were the data of these 2 external HD drives made with your current system/OS/pc or on a other/older system/OS/pc.

    And how did you move these files to the 2 external HD disk using Cut and Paste or Copy and Paste

    Cause:
    By default, when a file or folder is created, Windows assigns default permissions to that entity or object.
    Windows / NTFS File Permission for files and folders can be set to Owner, Shared, Read, Modify, or No access. This can be most prevalent for users attempting to access data on a Windows 10 machine, after adding data from a Windows 8 or older machine.

    Important: Moving a file using Cut and Paste will inherit the permissions set within parent folder and Carry over to the destination folder. Using Copy and Paste will not inherit the permissions of the destination folder, and may cause access issues; such as Access Denied, Administrator Permission Required, or Folder is empty
    Maybe you can look into this.
      My Computer


 

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