Mac,
Try the following and see if it does what you want:
- Open any drive, choose Tools, Folder Options, go to File Types and sort by
clicking on "File Types" column.
- Find "Folder" in the list, highlight it and choose Advanced button.
- In the Actions box highlight "explore", choose Set Default and then "OK"
your way back out to the drive view.
From now on, anytime you open a drive view, it should have Folders on the
left and the files in the large pane. If you want "Details", you can select
that from either View drop-down menu or the View icon in the toolbar.