Is there a limit to the number of files in a folder?

[timrob]

I keep a folder with a lot of files names which are all in alphabetical order.  Today I noticed that all files with the name starting after "T" disappeared. 

There's currently 630 files totalling 83 mb.  I have Windows XP Pro SP2.  Is there a limit to the number of files in a folder?  The missing files aren't in the Recyle Bin.

I copied 10 new files to the folder, most of the files had names starting with A-M.  A couple of the files had names starting with T, and a couple more with U and W.  When I copied the new files, all those with A-M copied over, only some of the ones with T copied over, the U and W didn't copy over.  In addition, some of the orginal files starting with the name T were deleted.

I played with it some more and found that when I copy new files in, the ones at the bottom of the list are automatically deleted.   I select Undo, the missing files reappear, and the new files that were copied are deleted with a prompt.  I tried it again with a brand new folder with the same problem.  I tried it on a different HD with the same problem. 

I tried the same thing but with a bunch of junk files.  I was able to get to 1100 files, but when the file count aproached 900, things started to really slow down.

I tried to run a Checkdisk, but Windows was unable to complete the disk check.

The folder is on a internal IDE harddrive, that is partitioned 3 times.  The HD is NTSF.  The partition has 11.7 GB of free space.  Any ideas?

[Jonas Wauters]

This isn't normal what you can try is:
CHKDSK /F
And
SFC /SCANNOW
If it still doesn't work check if you haven't got ani virus or malware that you installed lately.

Jonas

[timrob]

Good news.  I ran a chkdsk /x off of a command prompt.  Some errors were found and fixed.  All of the missing files were found.  I don't know exactly what happened, but I'm glass to have the files back.  I copied the dos screen below.

D:\>chkdsk d: /x
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Cannot lock current drive.
Volume dismounted.  All opened handles to this volume are now invalid.
Volume label is Data 0.

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
File verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
Sorting index $I30 in file 255.
Deleting index entry The Chronicles of Rid in index $I30 of file 255.
Deleting index entry The Color Purple.mpg in index $I30 of file 255.
Index verification completed.
CHKDSK is recovering lost files.
Recovering orphaned file The Chronicles of Riddick.mpg (749) into directory file
 255.
Recovering orphaned file The Color Purple.mpg (13993) into directory file 255.
CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)...
Security descriptor verification completed.
CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the volume bitmap.
Windows has made corrections to the file system.

  38178440 KB total disk space.
  25818808 KB in 15054 files.
      5084 KB in 788 indexes.
         0 KB in bad sectors.
     83060 KB in use by the system.
     65536 KB occupied by the log file.
  12271488 KB available on disk.

      4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
   9544610 total allocation units on disk.
   3067872 allocation units available on disk.

[Jonas Wauters]

Ok problem solved then or does it get back after you reboot?

Jonas