Video Tasks to Picture Tasks on Hard drive

[BEK]

I hesitate to post this since my original post caused a rash of less than
congenial comments but someone may be interested in my apparently very
unusual Hard Disk phenom.

Originally I posted that in the root of my Data Only F: Hard drive, in the
Tasks Pane, the first section at the top was entitled Video Tasks. I wanted
to change that to Picture Tasks since this drive is a storage disk for some
4200 jpgs.

I was informed that it was not possible to change and in fact, it wasn't
possible for me to see either Video or Picture tasks in the task pane of a
hard drive so I must be looking at a folder, not the drive root.

I am looking at the drive root and here's what's weird. This morning, the
Video Tasks section in the tasks pane has CHANGED all by itself to Picture
Tasks. This is what I wanted so I am pleased

Besides wanting to report this unusual event, I also am becoming concerned
that there is some sort of major malfunction going on with this drive or
it's installation.

Do I need to worry???

BEK

 

[Yves Alarie]

We can all learn.
I have an external hard drive, no folder on it, only photos. No picture (or
video) tasks displayed. I just made one folder and placed a photo in it.
Picture task is displayed for that folder if I open it. If I close the
folder and select a photo in the root there is no Picture tasks.

Here is the way XP displays the tasks by default. If the first file listed
in a folder is a photo file, you get Picture Tasks. If the first file listed
in the folder is a video file, you get Video Tasks. If the first file listed
is a document file, you get File and Folder tasks. If you don't like the XP
default, you can customize the folder to what you want. But this is for
folders, not hard drive. Thus the comments you received.

It would be interesting to know if the change from Video to Photo took place
because the first file listed on this hard drive has changed from a video
file to a photo file. Can you check this?

 

[BEK]

Thanks for the input Yves.

My situation differs from yours in that I have all my photo files on this
data hard drive...NOT in a folder. No folders listed on the hard drive
whatsoever.

It appears that the root of my hard drive is being displayed as a
folder....showing Picture Tasks first, then File and Folder Tasks, then
Other Places, then Details, in that order from top to bottom. It is not a
folder and once again there are no folders on this drive, only jpgs and a
few tifs.

Quite strange I know, but this is the situation I have.

Do you think there is some problem with the way this drive was installed?
It's a Maxtor 80G internal.

BEK

 

[BEK]

To further describe this, I just tried to use the options listed under
Picture Tasks and they do not work. Still worried there might be system
problems from this? Any guesses?
BEK

 

[Yves Alarie]

Frankly, I don't know. But look at my description again. I have the exact
same situation you have. I have a hard drive with no folder on it and the
only files on this hard drive are photo files. No Picture Tasks displayed,
this is now different from your situation, but we start from the same point,
all photo files in the root and no folder. Where we differ is you have
Picture Tasks displayed and I don't, until I make a folder on this hard
drive and place a photo file in it and Picture Task is displayed for me only
when I open the folder, not when I am in the root. But, for you Picture
Tasks is displayed in the root, something that it unusual, because Picture
Tasks is for a folder only.

Now, you tell us that while you have Picture Tasks displayed for the root,
none of the tasks work when you try them. All I can say is this: Picture
Tasks should not be displayed when you are looking at the root directory of
hard drive, regardless of files listed there. Picture tasks is for folders,
not hard drive. How Picture Task got there, I really don't know but since it
does not work, let us try to repair this.

Here is a suggestion.
1. Make a new folder on your hard drive.
2. Copy one of your picture from the root in this folder. 3. Open the
folder. Picture Tasks should be displayed. Try to see if any of the Picture
Tasks will work for the picture file in the folder. Test every Picture Task
available. Do they all work?
4. If so, copy all the files from the root to this folder.
5. Test again on a few files with Picture Tasks. Does this work?
6. If so, delete all the files from the root (I assume here that you
already have a copy of all these photos on CDs as a backup) and use the
picture files within the folder and no longer from the root.
7. If you delete the files from the root. they go to your Recycle Bin. Open
it and delete these files, you don't want to keep these files there.
8. If, when you make a folder, and copy a photo file in it and the Picture
Tasks do not work (as they do not work now from the root) obviously
something was wrong when installing this drive and I would try to re-install
it.

 

[BEK]

Ok, I tried putting all the photo files in a folder and all the Picture
Tasks for that folder seem be working correctly. The drive itself also still
lists Picture Tasks (until this morning, Video Tasks)! The drive doesn't
behave oddly or respond slowly so for now I guess I'll just wait and see
what happens. Yes, all files are backed up and as I add more files, will
continue to do so. Thanks for your help.
BEK