# Windows won't search an external HD...

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-wont-search-an-external-hd/539461>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 14, 2010, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-wont-search-an-external-hd/539461 "2010-05-14T19:34:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![BabaBooey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/dfb087/32.png) [@BabaBooey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BabaBooey)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-wont-search-an-external-hd/539461/1 "2010-05-14T19:34:41Z")

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I had this problem on a laptop with Windows 7 and now on one running XP.

My mom had a computer killed by a virus (wouldn’t let me access Windows, but that’s not an issue anymore). Eventually I will re-format and re-install Windows, but before that I need to get her pictures off of it. I got the external enclosure for it. I plug it in and Windows reads it, I can browse around with explorer and all, but whenever I search it ONLY searches the open folder, not any of the folders contained within (which makes it useless). My mom isn’t sure where she stored her pictures and I can’t find them. I saw a few others with the problem via google, and their solutions were to change the HD letter, or disallow indexing. Neither worked. Any ideas?

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**Author:** ![Number](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/number/32/242_2.png) [@Number](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Number)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-wont-search-an-external-hd/539461/2 "2010-05-14T23:30:04Z")

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If all else fails you can fall back on the good old [DIR command](http://ss64.com/nt/dir.html). Something like

```auto

dir x:\*.jpg /a:-d /b /s > c:\list.txt

```

would search the whole drive (substitute the appropriate letter for x:) for .jpg files and write output to a text file.

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**Author:** ![yoyodyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a9a28c/32.png) [@yoyodyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yoyodyne)\
**Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-wont-search-an-external-hd/539461/3 "2010-05-14T23:38:32Z")

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[WinDirStat](http://windirstat.info/) will show you where everything is.