Can you possibly help...

My friend has Vista and when they plugged in the external hard drive for some unknown reason the files names were changed only on it but the stuff in the files is OK. What can change the names on the files and what can get the normal names back? Would restoring the system bring back the normal names. The files were named like "mile one", "Mile two" , now they are just named "mile" . What happened to them , anyone want to venture a guess? Thanks for your time.

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Are you sure they actually got renamed? Try the hard drive on a different computer and see. If they are all named "mile", that would be weird because there can't be two of the same file names in the same directory (assuming they are). I'm thinking maybe windows explorer was having some problems just then and it makes it look like the filenames are changed.

Either that or he accidentally selected all the files and did a batch rename. I've done that before, so it's not unthinkable.

If that's not the case, then that's really weird, and that's the first time I've seen anything like that.

 

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yeah...check on another comp. that they actually were renamed indeed.

 

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He said he tried that on another of his computers with Win XP but it too shows the names on the file were changed but the contents remained the same, very unusual to me.

 

I depends on how the files were named in the first place, were they named "Mile.one" and "Mile.two" if so then it's likely the operating system considered these to be file extensions and refrained from reporting the names in the full glory. If this is the case then the names are still the same it's just how the OS reports to the information.

if it was say "mile one.txt" then like others have mentioned some sort of process has removed the number from the name, there are a few instances this might occur in programs (For instance if you were making an animated GIF from a number of numbered images etc) however I wouldn't suggest that it's something that would be from loading one OS to the other.

The only other option is if the drive in question was read in by a legacy driver that placed all filenaming conventions into the old DOS format (11.3) however I've only ever seen that as a legacy option for CD burners if you were creating backups for legacy use, most systems nowadays (XP and Vista included) handles extended filenames.

 

Thanks, but is there a "fix" to get those names put back on all of the files that are now only one name? There are over 200 files!

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If the filenames have been truncated then the only way to put the names back is manually sifting through them and renaming them one by one, thats IF of course the files really have been renamed.

Tell your friend to use the Commandline tool (CMD from a runbox) and to navigate to the external driver. Use the DIR command to see what files are in the folders on that drive.
It should give you the full names of the files, without any operating system formatting. With this you can identify if they truly have had their names changed or not.

I'd also question what Antispyware software your friend had installed, it's possible that a third party program might of thought that the naming convention was caused by a Virus and therefore reverted all the names to not having the number in. If thats the fault then you'll probably find something in that third party license that would of been scrolled through during installation disclaiming against information loss, or file damage.

 

As Stryder said, if there are named with "one" as the extention, windows by default will not show extensions in Windows explorer. Mile.one will only show up as "Mile" You need to look at "organize" then "folder seach options" then click the "view" tab, and uncheck the "hide known extentions" tab.

I don't know of anything that would change the filenames, except maybe a virus.

 

Thank you for your time on this, I will pass this along to him and see what happens.:thankyou: