0

i have a folder of pictures that i downloaded from my camera. Anytime i open that folder in windows explorer and click on any of the pictures my machine freezes for minutes. The pictures finally open up in picture viewer but it literally take 10 minutes for it to come up. Also once i go into this directory, the rest of my computer completely freezes. i can't launch the start menu, any other app, etc . . i basically have to do a hard reboot on my machine any time i get into this state.

Also some issues i am seeing:

  • If i click "Filmstrip View", it still doesn't show the images, it just shows this:

enter image description here

Does anyone have a suggestion or any thoughts for a possible cause of this issue. Unfortunately, i deleted the pictures from my camera and i don't want to lose the pictures but this is basically unusable so my worst case scenario is simply deleting the directory.

Improve this question
1
  • How big is it? I've seen stuff like this happen before with a huge image file. If not, you've got a virus and it's time to buy a new computer :D
    – nopcorn
    Aug 20, 2011 at 20:35

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
1

It sound's like something windows is unhappy with something in that folder. I'd recommend splitting up the files into separate folders to try and identify the file that's causing the problem. If you can't do this from explorer try doing it from the command prompt using the move command. It's possible the cause of the hang is explorer trying to build thumbnails. If you have the option it would probably best to move them to the external drive.

EDIT: If you can't move things within windows you could try burning an ubuntu live CD and try from there, I've found the cp command under linux much better than windows/dos at copying directories where some of the files are damaged. Windows tends to just stop at the first damaged file whereas cp copies what it can missing the damaged files.

Improve this answer
4
  • if this helps, when i go to that directory from the command line and type "Dir", it shows a list of files and then shows "File Not Found" at the end of the list. That seems suspicious
    – leora
    Aug 20, 2011 at 21:00
  • It does sound like something is a bit iffy with your filesystem. Try doing a chkdsk /r on the drive. If it's your C drive it won't happen until you restart.
    – Col
    Aug 20, 2011 at 21:08
  • chkdsk /r did fix the "File not found" error but the directory is still failing. i added some other points above that might provide some more insight (filmstrip view, etc)
    – leora
    Aug 20, 2011 at 21:41
  • @ooo I'd say it's definitely time to start copying things to another hard drive/USB stick if you can, if only for peace of mind. If you haven't started using your memory card again yet don't, because if we can't get stuff from the hard drive we'll be able to recover it from there.
    – Col
    Aug 21, 2011 at 7:59
0

Based on your question, I would say you have a bad shell extension which is attempting to render the picture.

To fix this, I would recommend looking through add/remove programs and removing ALL programs that are graphically related such as viewers and editors e.t.c. which you do not use.

If you still get it, it could be you have a bad file in that folder combined with a bad program for viewing. For example, a good few years ago, if you had a broken AVI file, VLC would crash Explorer.

However, based on your comments to the other answer, I feel that your hard drive could be corrupt, I recommend performing a full scan from outside Windows.

(Solution pasted from another answer I wrote).

Download UBCD, (or just HDAT on it's own - http://www.hdat2.com/).

For UBCD, go to Hard Disk Tools > Diagnostic Tools and run `HDAT 2"

Choose the drive and do a scan.

This is a very good tool that should give a better indication of the state of your hard drive.

Signs are not good from what you have said, but, this should confirm it for you.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .