What can I do? Can't move or copy files from external hardrive, usb flash.?

Question

I have being using Windos XP Service for many years. I always used Windows Explorer with no problems at all. But now I have problems when I copy or move folders. I have a 500 GB external hardrive and if I copy or move folders they show the folders with the source name and everything but they are empty.

With my usb flash happens the same thing. My usb flash has a 2 GB folder named ‘whatever.’ Inside the folder are several video, pics, doc files. When I copy or move this folder to another destination the folder shows empty.

I will appreciate any help provided.

Answer 1

globe has a good answer.



Sometimes you can get a corrupted, hidden file on a drive. The copy aborts when it hits this file, which often shows up at the beginning of the directory. That's why all you see is the empty folder on the copy.



There are ways to detect and fix this, but it's usually easiest to reformat the bad drive once you've got the useful files off it.

Answer 2

Create the same folder on the ext. drive then go open that folder on your machine and "copy all".

Move that to the newly created folder.

Answer 3

move the files, not the folders when folders are empty, delete them