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Question

External Hard Disk does not display folders

Mar 8, 2018 9:52AM PST

I recently transferred some folders/files (music and iso files) from my friend's laptop into my Toshiba external hard disk. But when I connect it to my laptop, those folders/files are not there. I've used my friend's laptop to transfer things into my hard drive before, and had no problems. All my previous files/folders etc are there and remained untouched; it's just those newly transferred files that are not there (as if they hadn't existed at all!). I opened the files on my hard disk through my friend's laptop just to make sure they're there and working, which they were. (I transferred them yesterday and found them gone when I used my laptop at home, so I initially assumed that I somehow hadn't transferred it properly)

The files show when I open them on my friend's laptop, but not on mine.

I've tried everything. The files aren't hidden (and I double-checked just to be sure), I've run cmd and attrib prompts (none worked), I've done an antivirus scan on the whole disk, and checked for damage. I'm just about desperate for answers. Silly

Anyone know of any solution? I can still transfer things from my own laptop to the hard disk with no problem.

Discussion is locked

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Clarification Request
Did you EJECT the drive?
Mar 8, 2018 10:10AM PST

I have only seen this happen when the owner unplugged the drive quickly.

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Kind of?
Mar 8, 2018 10:19AM PST

I tried to safely eject it, and when it says it can’t, I just manually removed it.

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That's likely why it happened.
Mar 8, 2018 10:22AM PST

Next time, log out to force this closure.

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Ah I see.
Mar 8, 2018 10:27AM PST

Thank you so much! Other than logging out, is there any other way to ensure it’s ejected properly?

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The other tricks. The first one is a sure way.
Mar 8, 2018 10:41AM PST

Click on start, then the power off option. Let Windows shut down.

There's an old school method that is worth knowing about. Open the cmd line and type the D: or what drive that is and type DIR. Now press Control+C. And if you want another DIR to see what's on the drive.

This seems to be working since Windows NT days that signals the OS to flush the buffers. Sorry but this is something I learned two decades ago and the article I got it from has not been seen in over a decade.