Picasa cannot find My Documents or My Pictures

[miick]

Picasa (a google product) scans disk looking for jpgs. It assumes that there will be files in ...\My Documents\My pictures. This worked as advertised until I had problems with sound on DVD movies. Dell fixed that by installing new firmware for the DVD player. After that Picasa was able to find some files and directories some of the time. After fooling around with it for a while, now it finds no files at all.

I added a new user, moved the files and ran Picasa logged on as the new user. It works fine. Now, I could just make that new account the primary and forget about the problem. Only, I fear that this is just a symptom of something dire in the file system. Or maybe a registry problem. So I'm still looking for some kind of answer. Google has found the same problem with applications other than Picasa a that also search out and keep track of files as Picasa does. No solutions, though.

I asked Dell about this and they did spend several hours on line with me looking around but, nice as the tech was, got very little help. Oh, we did try a system restore to before the firmware update and Picasa still can't find the
files.

A search of these fora did not turn up anything that seemed to apply. If you know of a thread that would help please point me there.

thanks, miick

[Bob_180_Bob]

Check Disk

1. Right click your disk drive icon (normally “C”),
2. Click “Properties.”
3. Click “Tools”
4. In “Error checking” click “Check Now”
5. Check the 2 boxes, “Automatically fix file system errors” and “Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors”
6. Click “Start”
7. At the pop-up window “The disk check could not……” Click “Yes”
8. Re-boot your PC and allow disk checker to start. (Do not press any key before it starts)

Verify Window’s Files

1. Go “START”, “RUN” type “CMD” Press “OK” or Boot PC into “safe mode with command prompt”
2. Type sfc /scannow /f (note:- space after sfc)
3. Windows file protection will check your files. Follow any prompts; you may be required to use your XP CD.
4. Re-boot your PC

Clean Boot

1. Go “Start”
2. “Run”
3. Type “msconfig”
4. Click “OK”
5. Click “Services”
6. Check box “Hide all Microsoft services”
7. Click “Disable All” re-enable Pisca
8. Click “Apply”
9. Click “Restart”
10. System will reboot, Check if problem still exists. (Do not access the internet or open any file you are unsure of as you have no virus protector running.)
11. If problem is fixed, enable the disabled items 1 at a time until you find the one causing the problem. If not fixed, re-enable all and re-boot.

On-line Virus Scan

Go to one or all of these sites and do an online virus scan.

housecall.trendmicro.com

security.symantec.com

us.mcafee.com/root/mfs/default.asp

Check Malware

Go to http://www.besttechie.net/tools/mbam-setup.exe
and download and run Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware.

Check Spyware

Go to www.safer-networking.org and download and run Spybot

See how you go there first

Post a detailed report

Go to:- www.majorgeeks.com/download3155.html download and run Hijack this. “Do not try to do any repairs yourself.” Save the report and send it with your next post along with any error logs.
To check error logs, go to “START” “RUN” type “eventvwr.msc” Click “OK” and check if there any errors in the logs. Include any information that could help:-

[gerbil]

Can YOU find all your jpg etc files? With explorer? Then your file system is okay. When you click on a drive the first thing Explorer does is actually got to the hd and physically read that partition's file table [watch the drive activity lamp; it reads the first level of directories and files, and so on in as you click deeper directories... these are physical reads], nothing to do with registry at all. All the registry knows, or thinks it knows, is your drive letters. So if Picasa is lost then try blaming Picasa. Reinstall it. Picasa may use a sort of MRU entry in registry to hold a list of accessed or known files, I do not know. Just remember that it is a google product.

[miick]

Thanks!

Blaming Picasa sounds good to me. Only, this time I'm gonna blame Dell. Apparently when the tech was wandering around trying to fix my DVD problem he inadvertantly dragged the "My Documents" folder to the "LocalSettings" folder. It took me forever to notice. Why PIcasa was able to find some of the files some of the time for a while is beyond me. As time, reinstalls and reloads passed it found fewer and fewer until there were none. Anyway I moved the folder and suddenly everything was fine.

There is, of course, the possibilty the I, myownself, moved the folder. I don't remember doing anything with Explorer before opening Picasa but it's possible. I'm going to blame Dell anyway.

Thanks for the help!

[gerbil]

I can live with that solution. Cheers.