Why does File Explorer blink?

jds63 · Dec 19, 2022

MrYossu said:
I cloned it so I could boot back into it in case I wanted to get any settings.

What settings ? Using Windows 11 now. Mean files also this can be put on external drives as you may know.

MrYossu said:
Ah, I see what you mean. Yes, I have found the new File Explorer to be a bit odd in what it shows in that left panel.

As you can see from the image I posted just earlier, I only have one D and one E.

GUID or MBR just two different types.. Still weird why shows as 2 D:’s and two E:’s in file explorer and where your issue exists.

Admit do not know about SQL Servers not sure if that is doing anything there to cause it. Had this all along ?

Wynona · Dec 19, 2022

jds63 said:
What settings ? Using Windows 11 now. Mean files also this can be put on external drives as you may know.

GUID or MBR just two different types.. Still weird why shows as 2 D:’s and two E:’s in file explorer and where your issue exists.

Admit do not know about SQL Servers not sure if that is doing anything there to cause it. Had this all along ?

I've seen "two of each" before, but tended to ignore because Macrium Reflect generally gives me the correct info.

Wynona · Dec 19, 2022

MrYossu said:
Yup, that's the clone of my previous installation. From what you said, I think it would be worth powering down, unplugging that and powering up again. I haven't booted into Win10 for a week or so now, and am unlikely to, so it wouldn't be a problem.

Not sure what you mean. D is an internal drive, and E is external. Each just has one main partition, although D also has 24Mb unallocated (not sure why). Here is a screenshot from Computer Management...

View attachment 47985

Does that help?

Very good question. The thing is that this is a very recent build (about 10 days now), so everything is new. I'm also not sure what stage I noticed the blinking. I ignored it at first, as I had other things on my mind.

Thanks again for the help. As I said, I think the next step is to remove the clone and see if it helps.

Is this a dual boot system; i.e. Drive C: being Windows 11 and and Drive X: being Windows 10?

If so, it could help the gurus working with you to know this.

Mine is Dual Boot, but I have Drive C: partitioned as two drives, rather than two drives installed.

jds63 · Dec 19, 2022

Wynona said:
I've seen "two of each" before, but tended to ignore because Macrium Reflect generally gives me the correct info.

Never seen that before being able to use two of the same drive letters guess maybe possible on same drive (not two seperate ones that i know of), just never seen it. He said only one of each.

Wynona · Dec 19, 2022

jds63 said:
Never seen that before being able to use two of the same drive letters guess maybe possible on same drive (not two seperate ones that i know of), just never seen it. He said only one of each.

Exactly . . . There are only one of each;

jds63 · Dec 19, 2022

Wynona said:
Exactly . . . There are only one of each;

Beginning of thread showed two as we know, not sure why it does show that way only reason i mentioned. Never saw it before.

MrYossu · Dec 19, 2022

I pulled the clone drive out, and it's been about 30 minutes now, and I haven't seen it blink once, so it does look like that was the culprit. Have to see how it goes over a longer period, but this does seem to have done it.

Thanks again to all who helped.

MrYossu · Dec 19, 2022

jds63 said:
Beginning of thread showed two as we know, not sure why it does show that way only reason i mentioned. Never saw it before.

As I said, I think it's File Explorer. It seems to show a random collection of things at the top of the left panel, and sometimes it forgets to put a dividing line between pinned items and the rest. I think what you saw was a result of that, nothing more.

Thanks again.

Wynona · Dec 19, 2022

MrYossu said:
I pulled the clone drive out, and it's been about 30 minutes now, and I haven't seen it blink once, so it does look like that was the culprit. Have to see how it goes over a longer period, but this does seem to have done it.

Thanks again to all who helped.

Very good! I'm glad you got it solved.

jds63 · Dec 19, 2022

MrYossu said:
As I said, I think it's File Explorer. It seems to show a random collection of things at the top of the left panel, and sometimes it forgets to put a dividing line between pinned items and the rest. I think what you saw was a result of that, nothing more.

Thanks again.

Okay, you know better then i do it's your system. Know when it happened and what is looked like before it happened.

jds63 · Dec 19, 2022

Wynona said:
Very good! I'm glad you got it solved.

clam1952 · Dec 19, 2022

jds63 said:
GUID or MBR just two different types.. Still weird why shows as 2 D:’s and two E:’s in file explorer and where your issue exists.

Its probably Windows thinking the drive is a USB drive and for some annoying reason lists it twice, I currently have 2L drives listed, it's an external backup drive.

MrYossu · Dec 19, 2022

clam1952 said:
Its probably Windows thinking the drive is a USB drive and for some annoying reason lists it twice, I currently have 2L drives listed, it's an external backup drive.

That's what I saw. I don't think it's listing it twice, I think it's showing your PC, with its attached drives, and then under that it's showing some combination of pinned items, recently visited items, etc. Drive L is presumably one of those, so appears again. If you look closely, the drives under PC-01 are indented slightly, as they are entries under the top one, whereas the L drive listed below is a top-level entry.

I've seen a similar thing where I'll get Documents under the top set of items, then again for some other (unknown to me) reason.

Sometimes I see a horizontal divider between the sections, which makes it clearer, but often I don't, and so it looks like an item is listed twice.

Guess it will be fixed at some point. Maybe!

johnlgalt · Dec 20, 2022

10 days old - I'm betting on Search indexer doing its thing on the old System drive.

Fast way to check would be to power down, disconnect that one old System drive, power back up and see if it still blinks or not.

MrYossu · Dec 20, 2022

johnlgalt said:
10 days old - I'm betting on Search indexer doing its thing on the old System drive.

Fast way to check would be to power down, disconnect that one old System drive, power back up and see if it still blinks or not.

Yes, that was the issue, please see my post from yesterday.