Vista won't "tree" all the folders of External Hard Drive

Hi,
I'm on Vista Home-Pr 32-bit and I use a Maxtor One Touch II 200 GB external
hard drive for backups. When I save a file to a folder, Vista will of course
do a partial tree to access just that one (1) folder, but then if I need to
access another folder, Vista won't Re-Access the tree of folders under My
Documents from scratch to list all my other folders. All it does is stay
stuck on that one (1) folder in the tree which I accessed before. Here's a
picture:

G: Local Disk
>My Documents
->Microsoft Excel (Folder)

So say the first file I backed up was copied to the Microsoft Excel Folder.
It does the partial tree like you see above. But then say I do another
completely different backup for another folder that is under My Documents
called 'My Receipts'. Moreover, there are plenty of other folders you would
see under My Documents, were Vista to do a full tree spread. But when I try
to click 'My Documents' to close it and reopen the full tree, Vista won't do
it. It just stays stuck on that partial tree.

I appreciate any help revolving this. Many Thanks, Frank B.

"Frank Bright" <> wrote in message
news:05878ADA-C5CF-4104-BB98-...
> Hi,
> I'm on Vista Home-Pr 32-bit and I use a Maxtor One Touch II 200 GB
> external hard drive for backups. When I save a file to a folder, Vista
> will of course do a partial tree to access just that one (1) folder, but
> then if I need to access another folder, Vista won't Re-Access the tree of
> folders under My Documents from scratch to list all my other folders. All
> it does is stay stuck on that one (1) folder in the tree which I accessed
> before. Here's a picture:
>
> G: Local Disk
>>My Documents
> ->Microsoft Excel (Folder)
>
> So say the first file I backed up was copied to the Microsoft Excel
> Folder. It does the partial tree like you see above. But then say I do
> another completely different backup for another folder that is under My
> Documents called 'My Receipts'. Moreover, there are plenty of other
> folders you would see under My Documents, were Vista to do a full tree
> spread. But when I try to click 'My Documents' to close it and reopen the
> full tree, Vista won't do it. It just stays stuck on that partial tree.
>
> I appreciate any help revolving this. Many Thanks, Frank B.

I don't know if this is the reason or if it even applies to you because we
don't have enough information but if you are using XP's "My Documents"
folder as opposed to Vista's Documents folder, perhaps because you might
have upgraded your system from XP to Vista. While I did a clean install of
Vista, I still had the XP My Documents folder and what I did was, I simply
made the sub-folders from XP's My Documents, sub-folders of Vista's
Documents folder; hence, when I click Documents, it always shows me all
subfolders I created and gives me a full folder tree as you describe.

While Vista's Documents folder performs the same function as My Documents
and quite a bit more depending upon your setup and applications, it does not
correspond identically to XP's "My Documents," the location is different and
its purpose broadened. If I've accurately described your situation, you
might try copying you're "My Documents" sub-folders to the Vista Documents
folder as a test and see if that resolves the issue. If yes, you can then
simply delete "My Documents once you've moved everything to the Documents
folder. NOTE: is some cases, you may need to point applications to the new
location(s) in Documents.
--
Michael Solomon
Backup is a PC user's best friend
DTS-L.Org: http://www.dts-l.org/