Hi everyone.

I have a weird problem I can't quite figure out. Wondered if anyone with some Win2K or NTFS experience could help me out.

On my Win2K system, I have 4 hard drives (2 IDE, 2 SCSI). The second IDE drive, E, has a directory on it named "incoming" that has disappeared. It appears to no longer exist to Windows (in fact, the shortcut I had made for it, is now showing that it has lost the link).

I checked the trash can to see if one of the family accidentally deleted it, I also checked Easy Recovery, which oddly showed the drive named as Unidentified (in reference to the filesystem?) but was unable to scan it for anything recoverable. Partition Magic and Norton Utilities can both scan the drive, and both indicate everything's fine.

I rebooted with a utility CD and ran Easy Recovery from there. This drive's name still showed as Unidentifiable, but I was able to tell Easy Recovery that it was NTFS and it then displayed *everything* just fine. Unfortunately, I was unable at that moment to transfer the missing files to another drive, but it gives me a fighting chance.

My questions are these, then:

* Did this directory suddenly become hidden by accident? If so, how do I unhide it? It is still taking up space on the HD. Why can't I see it or access it (I am the only user/account on this machine).

* Could a drive or filesystem glitch cause the apparent disappearance of a specific directory? What can fix this?

* Is there anything else I should attempt before a brute force recovery followed by a reformat?

I'm really pretty stumped as to how/why this occurred, and have been unable to find a command, toggle, or control that will restore this directory.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

kirkhere