Problematic Folder

[Tatterdemalion]

I use Windows XP Professional as my operating system and, for many years, I have been collecting thousands of screen grabs into a vast number of folders within one main folder. I have this data stored on TWO external NTFS hard drives and they are supposed to mirror one another.

I have now discovered that my laptop with 2GB of RAM cannot open that top-level folder and won't supply right-click functionality.

The drive *is* flashing as though it is possible access could be granted if I were to wait long enough for it all to load.

However, in the past I have "learnt the hard way" that if you use long file names and have long navigation paths within Windows you can lose access to files.

Have I exceeded a maximum which means I have permanent lost all means to retrieve ANY of the data ?

I should be receiving a new Windows 7 machine with 16GB of RAM within the next week. Is there any hope that that device will help me regain access or have I lost all of the data forever ?

[Tatterdemalion]

Crikey ! I have been struggling with this all morning - and, as soon as I come here to post my problem - it has gone !

I think I was, perhaps, too impatient with the (apparently) non-responsive Folder. My Toshiba computer that these hard drives were connected to broke about three months ago and I have not used these external drives since then. I have connected them
to a different laptop today - and it was the first time - so perhaps some indexing had to occur - and because that goes on in the background, I thought nothing was happening and that nothing would again.

I'd still like to know if I should be careful about file storage though.

If the details from Properties is correct I have 10.8GB of pictures as 220,478 images in 1,158 folders. Is it important for me to reorganise this or is it safe to carry on adding ?

[patio]

To be on the safe side i would split it into smaller chunks and burn it to DVD so you have a hard copy...
Note: single - layer DVD's hold approx 4 G of data so you'll have to re-organise them to your liking.