Windows 10: "No items match your search" on a particular external drive but not consistently

I get "No items match your search" when I search on a particular external drive, but it's not consistent. If I restart the computer, it usually will go ahead and work. I've tried a number of suggestion solutions and none seem to be working.

:)

 

Search not including items in external USB drive

Thanks for that.

My C: drive is an SSD with its Documents, Pictures etc. folders Redirected to the D drive. The D drive (external USB) holds all my Documents, Pictures etc. etc. That works for simple inspections by browsing (that is, I can open my Documents etc. folder (actually empty of course) in the C: drive and see all my Documents, Pictures etc..

I have been experimenting. As you advised, I selected my C and D drives in Indexing Options (please see attachment). The number of items went up from 72,000 to 141,000. Encouraging.When I search (next to the Start Button) for Aberdeen I get nothing to do with my computer - just web. At the top of its window are three icons: Find results in Apps/...in Documents/... in Web. Pictures, Music or Video are not offered. Documents produces results.

Still in that window, I press More at the top right and get a list: Search by category: All, Apps, Documents, Folders, Music, Photos, Settings, Videos and Web. (I wonder what "photos" means in this context?) I select Folders and get a list of folders including some in my Documents folder. Again, no Pictures, Music or Video.

Going back to the main search bar next to the Start button I search for pictures:aberdeen and get a minute proportion of what is in my pictures folder. Also, a message "These results may be incomplete" (this was what I and some others got last week, after the Anniversary Upgrade) when doing any search. It was cured by changing my language settings to be consistent.)

What a palaver! It is much quicker and more complete to go back to Windows 7 methods and before and search directly in a folder or folders that seem to be the one that might (or might not) hold what I want.

Cortana is shown by MS to be wonderful. MS says "Type what you're looking for in the search box on the taskbar. You'll get suggestions and answers to your questions, and search results from your PC and the web." Yeah!
What I want is to be able to search my computer generally, as a whole, for the name of someone mentioned in a letter buried two deep in folders somewhere, anywhere. Can this be done using just the search term in the search bar?

Thanks.

 

'no items match your search' / google drive help

hello! classic problem from what i can tell:

trying to search for files in windows 10 and get the 'no items match your search', when there's clearly items in there.

i uninstalled google drive because i hated it, which could be part of the issue. i've also heard it could be permissions. getting nowhere.

any help appreciated!

 

External Hard Drive

Hi John,

We suggest that you try the troubleshooting steps below:

• Open your External Hard Drive file in File Explorer.
• Type the name of the file you want to search on the search box and click Enter.

The file will show up in Search Results and you will be able to move it to the correct folder.

Let us know if you need further help.