Folders sometimes look empty but they aren't

[Onursarii]

Hi everyone. I want to share my issue with my desktop pc. I bought new SSD 2 weeks ago and installed Windows 10. And I started using my WD hard disk to store my games, movies etc. But for a few days, I have been seeing some issues on my hard disk's folders. Sometimes steam's game folders look empty, sometimes origin's folders look empty. And today I saw all folders on hard disk empty. When I restarted, it was fixed. But this really irritates me. Can you please help me about this issue? I searched a lot, I tried attrib -H -R -S C:\* /S /D code but it didn't work. What is wrong with that hard disk? PC is working great and my brother is playing Call of Duty which is stored on that hard disk. There is no problem playing games, running softwares but sometimes I just can't see the files on that hard disk.

 

[Colif]

did you take win 10 off the hard drive before using it to store games?

Were these folders on hdd before you started using them or are they new? If they existed already, you may need to take ownership of them: http://winaero.com/blog/how-to-take-ownership-and-get-full-access-to-files-and-folders-in-windows-10/

maybe you should run: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/disk-error-checking-windows-8

could also run Data Life Guard for windows, its WD software designed to check their drives - run the short and extended tests

 

[Onursarii]

did you take win 10 off the hard drive before using it to store games?

Were these folders on hdd before you started using them or are they new? If they existed already, you may need to take ownership of them: http://winaero.com/blog/how-to-take-ownership-and-get-full-access-to-files-and-folders-in-windows-10/

maybe you should run: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/disk-error-checking-windows-8

could also run Data Life Guard for windows, its WD software designed to check their drives - run the short and extended tests

I just deleted the system part and combined it to another part, now i have 1 tb disk. And they existed already, the files aren't new.

Now i took the ownership of the files, most of them were already taken. i took rest. And btw, i didn't understand your first sentence. I tried microsoft diagnostic but it didn't find any problem. Now trying WD's software.

Edit: I tried WD's software but it said 'Too many bad sector detected' while it was working only for a five minutes. And actually I should add something, I'm getting EFI Shell Version 2.31 error sometimes while starting or restarting the PC. I have to power off and power on to skip that error page. Maybe these errors are related.

 

[Colif]

You might want to go into bios and check your boot order. If you can, disable efi boot as you don't want to get stuck in the efi shell. If the hdd is in boot order, i would remove it as well. should only have SSD and maybe something called windows boot manager, it can be either of them as first. Not sure why it would skip ssd in boot order and try hdd. expect efi shell is 3rd in boot order.

Also, you need to think about getting a new hdd as your current one needs replacing. Its on its way out, that is why it comes and goes like it does. The sector error is a clincher. Seems you bought that ssd at just the right time. At least windows won't disappear so easily.

I wrote a response to your message already, before you added to it.. not sure where it went.

 

[Onursarii]

You might want to go into bios and check your boot order. If you can, disable efi boot as you don't want to get stuck in the efi shell. If the hdd is in boot order, i would remove it as well. should only have SSD and maybe something called windows boot manager, it can be either of them as first. Not sure why it would skip ssd in boot order and try hdd. expect efi shell is 3rd in boot order.

Also, you need to think about getting a new hdd as your current one needs replacing. Its on its way out, that is why it comes and goes like it does. The sector error is a clincher. Seems you bought that ssd at just the right time. At least windows won't disappear so easily.

I wrote a response to your message already, before you added to it.. not sure where it went.

There are two choices: UEFI or UEFI and LEGACY. UEFI is chosen in BIOS because when I try to use LEGACY and UEFI, it gives another error as if there is not possible windows on SSD. It is really complicated. If I had portable disk, I would delete all the datas and I would completely reinstall the Windows. Thanks for your help. I will try

 

[Colif]

I didn't mean boot method, i mean the order the drives are chosen when PC comes to boot up. EFI shell is sometimes an option in the boot order, i was saying to remove it.

Leave it as UEFI as it matches the format win 10 was installed in. You don't want Legacy - sorry to confuse you.

The main thing is, replace hdd as its going bad. Do it before it dies and you can copy everything from it onto new drive.

 

[Onursarii]

I didn't mean boot method, i mean the order the drives are chosen when PC comes to boot up. EFI shell is sometimes an option in the boot order, i was saying to remove it.

Leave it as UEFI as it matches the format win 10 was installed in. You don't want Legacy - sorry to confuse you.

The main thing is, replace hdd as its going bad. Do it before it dies and you can copy everything from it onto new drive.

There are only two boot mode: UEFI and LEGACY+UEFI
When I select UEFI, I sometimes get this error:

And when I select LEGACY+UEFI, I can select my ssd to boot but I get this error:

, it means, I cant run my PC when I select LEGACY+UEFI.
Additionally, when I select UEFI, I have to select UEFI Hard Disk, there is no option to select my SSD.

These are the other images:

 

[Colif]

I should have asked what motherboard you had before guessing what to change in there. It is less confusing then, I would have gone straight to your manual.

Its likely UEFI hdd covers the SSD, MSI doesn't differentiate between SSD & HDD with their labels.

In the UEFI fixed boot order priorities, can you disable all of them except the UEFI HDD (which should be the ssd) Note: Trying to work out if UEFI Key = keyboard or USB stick, as I would leave a backup method of booting and USB is a good choice. If you have a DVD drive, then UEFI CD/DVD is a good second choice. You don't need to use all the choices, just the ones that match your PC

As for Efi screen, I think fs0 & b1k0 = your current boot drive, the b1k1 might be your old hdd. The long list of numbers after GPT in that picture is likely to be its GUID code (every hard drive in the world that is set up in GPT has a unique drive number). Now B1k1 shows me your hdd was originally set up as GPT, something I hadn't thought about too much. this is just info: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/guid-gpt-partition-windows

In disk management (In win 10), can you show me a screen shot of both drives?

I know you deleted the System partition off the hdd but curious if it has an EFI boot partition on it. Have you ever booted SSD without the hdd in case? Did you remove hdd when installing SSD?

 

[Onursarii]

I should have asked what motherboard you had before guessing what to change in there. It is less confusing then, I would have gone straight to your manual.

Its likely UEFI hdd covers the SSD, MSI doesn't differentiate between SSD & HDD with their labels.

In the UEFI fixed boot order priorities, can you disable all of them except the UEFI HDD (which should be the ssd) Note: Trying to work out if UEFI Key = keyboard or USB stick, as I would leave a backup method of booting and USB is a good choice. If you have a DVD drive, then UEFI CD/DVD is a good second choice. You don't need to use all the choices, just the ones that match your PC

As for Efi screen, I think fs0 & b1k0 = your current boot drive, the b1k1 might be your old hdd. The long list of numbers after GPT in that picture is likely to be its GUID code (every hard drive in the world that is set up in GPT has a unique drive number). Now B1k1 shows me your hdd was originally set up as GPT, something I hadn't thought about too much. this is just info: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/guid-gpt-partition-windows

In disk management (In win 10), can you show me a screen shot of both drives?

I know you deleted the System partition off the hdd but curious if it has an EFI boot partition on it. Have you ever booted SSD without the hdd in case? Did you remove hdd when installing SSD?

My motherboard is MSI 970 Gaming. I guess I found a way to disable HDD from boot totally. There was another chocie under the list saying "Hard Disk Drive BBS Priorities" which I saw yesterday while seeing the images I took. There were my HDD's name which is starting with WD... I disabled that part. And today I saw the Windows Loader... on boot order and I disabled all the ones which starts with WD (there were three boot order starting with WD) and this is my disk management's image. But I guess my problem is solved, we will see in a few days.

Note: Disk 0 is SSD, Disk 1 is HDD. I bet you know the best 😀

 

[Colif]

i would if i understood the language

What do the words say in the brackets after healthy on Disk 0? Do any of them say Boot?

Mine, that also only has two partitions on ssd (I used to have one but when i got the anniversary edition, it made a recovery partition) which is clever since win 10 makes 4 on install, says System, Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump, Primary Partition

The existence of the efi partition on drive 1 was what I was afraid of. IF you installed win 10 on the ssd and still had hdd attached, it appears to have put the efi partition on drive 1 to boot drive 0. You should have an efi partition on drive 0, Now I think that if you remove hdd from PC the ssd may not boot at all. And considering the health of hdd, that could be a problem. Guess it depends on if PC is booting now.

Now I think about it, the recovery partition being on drive 1 is also strange but it may have been there before and win 10 just reused it.

 

[Colif]

If you have no boot option in disk 0 you have a problem. What I suggest is buy a 2tb hdd to replace the 1tb you have now, put it in PC and copy everything off hdd onto it, and also anything off C drive you want to save. Then d/c both hdd's, take old one out of case and reinstall win 10 on the ssd. Not having drives attached gives it no choice as to where to boot from. Once win 10 finished and working, reconnect 2tb drive and copy stuff across again.

then I feel your odd boot behavior might end as well.

 

[Onursarii]

If you have no boot option in disk 0 you have a problem. What I suggest is buy a 2tb hdd to replace the 1tb you have now, put it in PC and copy everything off hdd onto it, and also anything off C drive you want to save. Then d/c both hdd's, take old one out of case and reinstall win 10 on the ssd. Not having drives attached gives it no choice as to where to boot from. Once win 10 finished and working, reconnect 2tb drive and copy stuff across again.

then I feel your odd boot behavior might end as well.

Ah god, I got the EFI screen today again. Before that happens, I couldn't see the files on HDD again. I guess I should completely move the datas on HDD to anywhere I find... maybe my laptop. And I should format the disk, then remove HDD and install the Windows on SSD. That will solve startup problem I guess. Thanks for your help. When I do that, I will write here.

 

[Colif]

I would do it as soon as you can as if your Bootloader (EFI partition) is on hdd and it stops working, you won't be able to boot SSD. You not seeing drive and then getting the efi boot right after is related. I think you getting the efi screen at boot because the hdd is not seen by it as well as you. Since I think the efi partition is on the hdd, it would be one possibility. It disappears on you, it probably does same to bios too.

The way UEFI boot works is it looks for a particular file on all drives in PC, and then follows its lead to the windows loader. That file is in the EFI partition and if BIOS can't find it, it seems on your PC it loads the efi shell. On other PC it just sits there with a black screen with flashing white cursor

Do you mean format hdd or ssd? You don't need to format ssd before installing win 10 on it, just do a custom install and a format of the drive is part of the process, it will need space to make 4 partitions instead of the one you have now.