Invisible images in folder

[tutuava]

I have a really weird issue with my World of Warcraft screenshot folder I'm hoping someone can help me with. I did try to ask in their technical forums, but was directed to it being a Windows issue, so maybe someone here can help

(I use an updated Windows Vista)

At some point I lost my wow screenshot folder for unknown reasons, and thought I had lost all my screenshots as a result. I made a new folder and took a few new shots. When I viewed them in acdsee not only were those displayed but also all of my old ones. They don't show in the folder when I open it, but when I open the same folder in acdsee (or any other image viewer, although not photoshop). I can actually re-save an 'invisible' image in acdsee to the same folder and it will no longer be invisible. But since there are over 700 images that's a bit much work.

When I copy the folder to another part of the hard drive the invisible files are not copied over. Also, checking properties for the folder with invisible files only lists the visible files (and their size).

I've checked the windows folder settings and it's not set to have anything be invisible.

I'd like to make a backup of this folder (and to have the images normally visible again), can someone help out please?

 

[tutuava]

No ideas on how to make them visible?

 

[gsaldivar]

Hard to know for sure what is going on here. The images you see are possibly saved in an index file somewhere. While the original images may be moved, deleted, corrupted, you can still "see" them in the index. Another possibility is some directory damage. If the images are important to you, I would immediately image the drive to avoid possible data loss if there is indeed corruption. After making a safe copy, then try running a checkdisk scan on the drive and see if anything turns up...

 

[sm625]

Either they are not really in that folder or they are in one big file somewhere. If you have 700 images then you should be able to find them using windirstat or some other tool. If they're in one file then it should be a pretty big file.

Are they jpg files? If so then do a search of all hard drives for all files of type jpg.

 

[tutuava]

Thank you for your thoughts, it made me try a new search and I found them! I did a standard advanced file search of image files with the partial name they have and ticked 'include non-indexed, hidden and system files' and they showed up in a way that allowed me to select and copy them to the folder where they somehow both were and were not present at the same time. When I copied them over I didn't get any overwrite message, so the system apparently didn't think they were actually there. But they are now!

I still have no idea what was going on here, but fortunately it's fixed now