An AutoFilter should be able to sort all the rows in the worksheet. If
some rows are being excluded, perhaps there's a blank row somewhere in
your table.
However, an AutoFilter dropdown list will only show 1000 entries. If
your column has more than 1000 unique items, they can be filtered, but
they can't all be displayed in the dropdown list. The items in the
column appear alphabetically sorted in the dropdown list, and only the
first 1000 alphabetical entries will appear.
To AutoFilter for an item that doesn't appear in the dropdown list, you
can choose Custom from the dropdown list, and type the criteria, as
you're currently doing. Also, there are a couple of workarounds here:
http://www.contextures.com/xlautofilter02.html
