Folders not showing up in Finder?

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Folders not showing up in Finder?

I've recently bought an iMac (21.5") and have been transferring all my music from the old PC to it via an external hard drive (format: MS-DOS (FAT32), 1tb).

I've noticed that some folders just don't show up in Finder. I have no idea why - they are exactly the same as every other folder on the hard drive ie. a folder containing an album with mp3s (same format of audio as all the other folders). It's definitely not a space problem.

It's a real nuisance as there may be more folders that haven't showed up that I'm not aware of (I only found out by chance that some were missing when I was specifically looking for them), I have a LOT of music.

Note: the folders show up when plugged into the pc.

Some help around this issue would be great. I have tried verifying/repairing the hard drive via Disk Utility, and deleting & re-adding the albums from the pc to the hard drive again. They still don't show up. (they're not hidden either). I also googled but couldn't find anything.

I wasn't sure whether to post this under the iMac or the OS section.. I'm running Lion 10.7.1 if it helps. Hopefully someone will be able to help me!

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.1)

Posted on Sep 21, 2011 1:25 AM

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Answer 1

Fortuny

Level 7

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Sep 21, 2011 4:36 AM in response to christinacn

Any chance that the missing folders have a name starting with one . (point) ?

OSX treats such files and folders as hidden.

Stefan

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Answer 2

christinacn Author

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Sep 21, 2011 5:02 AM in response to Fortuny

Nope, they're just the names of the albums. No decimal points!

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Answer 3

Fortuny

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Sep 21, 2011 6:17 AM in response to christinacn

I had that problem with a "To Roccoco Rot" album named ".CD" which 'disappeared' when I switched from Windows to OSX.

But other than the decimal point I am not aware of problems with Windows Folder Names in OSX.

Stefan

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Answer 4

christinacn Author

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Sep 22, 2011 12:23 AM in response to Fortuny

Okay - I have just noticed that all the folders that don't appear all have foreign characters in their titles (ú, ñ, á, etc)...

So must be related to that!

Help! (do I have to change the folder names or is there a way around this?)

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Answer 5

Lexiepex

Level 6

14,102 points

Sep 22, 2011 1:33 AM in response to christinacn

Hi Christina, The folders with special charactars in their names should be visible. Probably the characters are misformed by the transfer from the PC to the Mac. Make a new folder with the same characters in the name and see that it is visible. You then have to change the 'misformed' characters of all folders.

When you want to change characters in names for a number of files/folders at the same time, use a renamer like "A Better Finder Rename" and check it in "services", so that you have it under <services> in the (right click) contextual menu (it works on files as well as folders). Keep us informed. Lex

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Answer 6

Fortuny

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Sep 22, 2011 4:23 AM in response to christinacn

HFS+ (or MacOS Extended(Journaled)) allows all Unicode characters for filenames http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HFS_Plus

So I doubt that such "foreign" characters as the ones you mentioned are causing such trouble.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filenames

Lexs approach sounds like one to try out.

Stefan

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Answer 7

christinacn Author

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Sep 22, 2011 4:53 AM in response to Fortuny

Hmm. I created a new empty folder in Finder with "foreign characters" and there were no problems. So I guess it's nothing to do with that after all. Lex, I had a look at "A Better Finder Rename" but the problem is that I am unable to see/access the folders - and thus unable to use this program to rename.

I'm at a loss really, and I'm thinking it may just be easier to make new folders for all of them and copy the mp3s into them.

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Answer 8

Lexiepex

Level 6

14,102 points

Sep 22, 2011 6:04 AM in response to christinacn

You see: the charachters/names are corrupted by the transfer.

If you set Finder to show hidden files and folders, you should see them.

Use a widget for that: "hiddenfiles.wgt".

Then you can decide what to do.

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Answer 9

christinacn Author

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Sep 23, 2011 5:22 PM in response to Lexiepex

Oh okay I see. Sorry I'm a newbie - I can't find how to set Finder to show hidden files and folder and couldn't find the "hiddenfiles.wgt" widget?

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Answer 10

Fortuny

Level 7

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Sep 23, 2011 9:11 PM in response to christinacn

Use this one http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/28002/ishow-invisible

Or multi-purpose tools like Onyx or TinkerTool can also enable the "show hidden files+folders".

Both can be found on MacUpdate as well.

Stefan

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Answer 11

christinacn Author

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Sep 23, 2011 9:32 PM in response to Fortuny

Ok, that worked to see hidden files, but the folders still didn't show up. (Not surprised, I didn't think they were hidden anyway).

This is such a bizarre issue! I renamed the folders to all plain English letters instead of the original names which included some foreign letters (I did this via the pc), and now they show up when the hard drive is plugged into the mac. So I think I'll just leave them like that, copy them to the mac hard drive and rename them back to the original names later. It's still strange that this happened in the first place though. Now I'll have to check every folder with foreign characters on the pc and do the same thing. (sigh)

Thanks for your help. If you have any more suggestions please do let me know! Hopefully there is an explanation/easier way around this.

Christina

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Answer 12

christinacn Author

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Sep 23, 2011 10:14 PM in response to christinacn

****, I'll need to change each indiviudal track name of each song too to transfer over! Please tell me there is a solution to this!!

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Answer 13

christinacn Author

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Sep 24, 2011 7:48 PM in response to Fortuny

Sorry for the above - it wasn't even really a swear word, but it censored it anyway. =/

Do you have any more suggestions?

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Answer 14

Lexiepex

Level 6

14,102 points

Sep 25, 2011 1:24 AM in response to christinacn

When you don't see them, and probably you have a lot, can you stille select them on the Windows machine? If so, in Windows there is a rename possibility (you have to search google) that can change names like "A better Finder Rename" in Mac, I forgot the name..., that you can use: list them, run the rename Utility, let it change all the special characters into the same letter without the accents, and when you retransfer the folders the characters should not be corrupted.

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Answer 15

christinacn Author

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Oct 3, 2011 2:25 AM in response to Lexiepex

Sorry for the late reply, been hectic lately. Yes I am able to select them and use them as normal on Windows. I'm sure there is a Windows rename possibility but that is such a pain for such a basic problem (and time consuming! - still would have to go through each individual track). There are no other ways around this?

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