OS is Win98SE.

For 4 years I have been using first PS LE and then Photoshop 6. During that time I have been storing my image files on a separate partition (E) from the main (C) system one. All of a sudden this week, I find that when I am in either version of PS (or Image Ready), although I can "see" the E partition in the "tree" view of the HDD in PS, when I go to open that partition, the system freezes with the hour glass and the only way to get out is to use ctrl-alt-del which closes PS. Yet I can access that partition with any other program, and if I drag and drop a file to the C or D partitions, I can then open it just fine in either version of PS.

I have done the following to try to fix the problem:

1. I ran scandisk in fix mode (no errors) and Norton Disk Doctor which supposedly checks the partition tables (no errors).

2. I restored system (C) backups I made in July, and then from June (which are stored on a slave with the aid of Drive Image) thinking that something odd had happened in PS. Still did not work. And these backups also restored any flaws that might have occured in the registry as well as eliminated the possibility of any spyware or other junk interfering with PS. Furthermore, I looked at all the stuff that had been added to E during the last week and there is nothing there of an odd file type or extension that is different from what was there previously. Virus scans produced nothing.

3. I uninstalled PS and reinstalled it. Could still not access E partition.

4. Finally, I made a 4th partition (F) with Partition Magic and moved all my photo files folders to it. PS opens them just fine now that they are on the new partition.

5. I discovered that if I set "open" to a specific format (ie., TIFF, JPEG, etc.) while in PS it can access E but since the pictures were in folders, the only way it can get a picture is to have it removed from a folder; it will not show folders if in a specific picture format, and if it is set to "all formats", then it freezes.

This is apparently some obscure problem that is apparently a combination of something in Win98SE partition E and PS, but I need help from someone that is highly familiar (more than I apparently am :-) ) both with Windows and PS and there do not seem to be any such people on the other forums I have visited. I was told about this forum on the Popular Photography Forum and I hope maybe someone here can advise me.

Although I have fixed the problem by creating the 4th partition and moving the photo files there (which is actually more convenient because I don't have to sort through anything else to get to the them), this thing makes me nervous, because if it happened once, it could happen again with the new partition. Of course if it does not happen again for 4 years, it won't matter because this computer is not going to last that much longer, but still . . .

Any suggestions as to what might have gone wrong and how to fix it would be most appreciated.

Thank you.

Karl Tipple

Karl_Tipple

Replied in the following topics

PS6 Suddenly Cannot Access Partition Where Images Are Stored Win98SE