Strange folder problem, NTFS

[spinoza]

Hi. I have a small but odd problem with folders that seems empty when I open them with PCLOS (MiniME), the files are simpley gone. But when I open them with Windows all files are there. The problem only exists with some folders, others on same partition, with same parameters and same filetypes inside works fine on PCLOS.

To be more specific heres 2 examples:

On one NTFS partition I have 4 folders, all with mp3 files. 3 folders have files viewable in PCLOS, but not the fourth folder. This is a partition on a local harddisk. To access the files in the forth folder I have to boot up XP, and all files are fine. If I, in XP, copy a file to one of the 3 other folders, the file can be viewed and accessed in PCLOS again.

The same happens with a folder on an external harddrive. Other folders can be viewed and accessed by PCLOS, but one single folder seems empty. In that folder I keep mpeg and avi files. Again, all files are present when the folder is opened by Win XP.

Do you have an idea what can be the issue here?

[spinoza]

By the way, I have tried open them with both konquerer and Krusader and both "sees" the folder as empty. The same if I open and browse the folder with ex. Amarok. Rightclick on the folder tells that theres 0 files and 0 bytes, never the less theres actually lots of files inside, when viewed by XP.

[Old-Polack]

Hi. I have a small but odd problem with folders that seems empty when I open them with PCLOS (MiniME), the files are simpley gone. But when I open them with Windows all files are there. The problem only exists with some folders, others on same partition, with same parameters and same filetypes inside works fine on PCLOS.

To be more specific heres 2 examples:

On one NTFS partition I have 4 folders, all with mp3 files. 3 folders have files viewable in PCLOS, but not the fourth folder. This is a partition on a local harddisk. To access the files in the forth folder I have to boot up XP, and all files are fine. If I, in XP, copy a file to one of the 3 other folders, the file can be viewed and accessed in PCLOS again.

The same happens with a folder on an external harddrive. Other folders can be viewed and accessed by PCLOS, but one single folder seems empty. In that folder I keep mpeg and avi files. Again, all files are present when the folder is opened by Win XP.

Do you have an idea what can be the issue here?

Wild stab here. Try renaming the directory, in Windows. With the problems some are reporting with file names, it could be a particular character that can't be properly read in the directory name, by your Linux installation, which is also included in the internal directory index of it's contents. With a different name, it's possible the contents could then be properly read. Just a thought.

[spinoza]

Thank you for the suggestion old-polack, unfortunatly no luck. I have renamed the folder from "blandet" to "mixed". At the same time I created a new empty subfolder from Windows, this is not seen in PCLOS either. I have also tried to open the folder as root, no luck.

I have to modify my first post, because creating a new folder and copy the files to that one in XP, does not make the files viewable in PCLOS on the local partition, only on the external drive.

I have now also tried to create a new folder in PCLOS, reboot to XP, copy files to the folder, reboot to PCLOS. The files inside are not viewable, only the folder and it's properties which are exactly the same as all other folders that works fine.

Even more strange is this; If I in PCLOS copy new files to the folder, I get no errors, but I can still not view the files. If I then reboot to XP I can see the new files that I copied to the folder with PCLOS, so they have been copied with sucess.

So I dig that it is either a problem with PCLOS and the NTFS filesystem - or it is a problem with the file table on the partition. Can I in any way force a check of the disk with PCLOS, and do that without risk of loosing hte files?

[spinoza]

OK, after a few more minutes of thinking. Until yesterday everything worked fine. Yesterday I connected an external 1TB harddisk and was suprised that I could not see the files in a certain folder on that usb disk, but I could do my things in XP. After that moment the problem started existing on my internal NFTS partition too, but only in folders that is created after the usb harddisk was connected. Ofcause I have disconnected the usb now, but the folders still seems empry. Can the usb disk have caused somekind of disorder or problem in fstab or in the filesystem in general?

[Old-Polack]

OK, after a few more minutes of thinking. Until yesterday everything worked fine. Yesterday I connected an external 1TB harddisk and was suprised that I could not see the files in a certain folder on that usb disk, but I could do my things in XP. After that moment the problem started existing on my internal NFTS partition too, but only in folders that is created after the usb harddisk was connected. Ofcause I have disconnected the usb now, but the folders still seems empry. Can the usb disk have caused somekind of disorder or problem in fstab or in the filesystem in general?

Have you tried defragging that partition from the Windows side, as well as doing a file system check?

[marian]

Try to create one or two new folders and copy the same files to them as you copied to one you can see in PCLOS. Or just copy files you can see in PCLOS to those new folders.
Can you see those files after copy?

[Bald Brick]

spinoza,

One of your countrymen had a similar problem last year. I'll quote myself:

In late December OleWilly had a similar problem: after a fresh install of 2009 he could see the contents of his folders on an NTFS drive; after a full update he couldn't anymore.

The reason turned out to be a change in the way ntfs-3g handled character sets, together with the fact that he had quite a number of files with non-ascii characters in their names. And it wasn't only those files that became invisible but all the files in the same directories. (I don't think the file types mattered.)

Renaming all the relevant files was of course some kind of a workaround, although not really a satisfactory one.

But quite recently OleWilly reported that installing PCLOS Gnome 2010 beta with the latest kernel made the problem disappear.

So do you have many filenames with Danish characters in the misbehaving folder?

Are you running 2010 Final? Have you tried installing a newer kernel?

[spinoza]

Finally it worked out, editing the fstab file did the trick. XP actually found a lot of errors running scandisk as old-polack suggested, and after that I was able to create a new folder in PCLOS and copy the files to that folder in Windows. But I still couldn't see the files in the old folders in PCLOS. I used diskdrake to create new mountpoints and overwrote fstab, and that seem worked without the unmask parameter. I guess mounting the external ntfs drive did mess something up.

Thanks all for your time and comments and suggestions,