A limit on the number of files in a folder?

[matrix]

Is there a limit on how many files you can have in a folder?
I have a folder where I keep all my files related to video encoding and stuff, and I keep it on a second HDD, in case I have to reinstall windows, I know I can find them there.
But for some reason the older ones, keep on dissapearing.
Is there anything I can do to prevent that?

[Shinigami-Sama]

you're prolly just loosing the files in the midst of the others
I have the same problem sometimes...
heres a list of file systems you can check to see how many files it can hold at maxium
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_systems

[matrix]

Thanks for the info.
I don't seem to be nowhere near the limit, and still I'm loosing my files.
I might have to organize them in a different way.

[CWR03]

You may be losing files due to failing sectors of your hard drive. When is the last time you did a thorough disk check?

[matrix]

You may be losing files due to failing sectors of your hard drive. When is the last time you did a thorough disk check?

It might be I don't know. It's been several months since I formated that drive. I just defragmented it right now. Mabe it helps.
But it seems that's not the only problem I have. Apparently I lost the ability to drop files to a certain location. I can highlight them in the right side of the explorer and drag and drop them in the desired folder on the left side. But if I want to move them to another folder on the right side, they won't go.
I tried a couple of registry fixes, but that didn't help.
I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that recently I added some option, Copy To, and Move To Folder in the right click context menu.

[Sharktooth]

You may be losing files due to failing sectors of your hard drive. When is the last time you did a thorough disk check?
or due to a strange bug in NTFS (that happens im=n very rare cases) or somewhere else that made me loose all files from a certain date...

[Inventive Software]

FAT32 has an arbitrary file limit in directories, but I don't know what it is. NTFS doesn't have this, so I'd pin the blame on Windows or your hard drive slowly failing. Either that, or sub-categorise the files more often so there's a lot less in the directory.

[matrix]

sub-categorise the files more often so there's a lot less in the directory.

I started to do that allready.
It was just so comfortable. Having that folder set for downloads in Mozilla, and don't worry about it.
I don't know about the HDD though. the one I noticed this things happening on, is actually newer than my main HDD. But I know, that doesn't mean it can't happen.

Anyway, thanks for all the answers. I appreciate it.
Any thoughts about the other issue?

[Shinigami-Sama]

just check its S.M.A.R.T data
speedfan lets you do that just fine
that'll tell you if theres anything funny about it

[jeffy]

You can find the folder corruption with unusual tools :)
http://www.kvipu.com/CDCheck/

Click: Check, select the folder and if corrupt the bottom will show in the Message column:
The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable. (code: 1392)

Regarding the drive reliability (75 days old and gone...)
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=137523

EDIT:
HDDScan for the reliable test of the sectors
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1135110#post1135110

[matrix]

About the drag and drop issue, it's been fixed by service pack 3.