Files not displaying correctly

I transferred about 50GB of video files to my sandisk usb drive. But I have noticed all the files have been placed in pictures/.Gallery2/recycle The files names have all been renamed to long strings of random numbers and letters and dont display correctly. If I right click and open with a video player they work fine. Is there some reason this would happen and any way I can reverse it? Any help would be appreciated.

Being in a hidden folder and a subfolder named recycle sounds to me like a Windows folder used for files being deleted. Not a SanDisk problem, more like a video app or Windows problem.

Where were the files originally before being copied and what did you use to copy them?

I copied from my laptop to the USB drive. Just drag and drop. The files still open with the open with option but they just have all these weird names. If I transfer back to my laptop they still don’t display properly. I think afterwards when I used the drive on my laptop I had a message saying the drive needed to be repaired. Maybe that has something to do with it.

I suspect you didn’t use Windows’ Safe Remove option when removing the USB drive and the FileAllocationTable got screwed up.

Two options:

  1. On a Windows’ Command Prompt run a CHKDSK command for the USB drive.

  2. If you still have the drives on your laptop I recommend deleting them off the USB drive and the folders they are in then recopying them from the laptop and using the Safe Remove option before removing the drive.

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Connect the USB pen drive or flash drive to PC. Step 2. Open Windows " File Explorer" > Go to “Tools” > “Folder” Options > Go to the “View” Tab > Check " Show hidden files , folders, and drives". Finally, click “Apply”. . .

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Thanks for the help but the files are not hidden. They have just been moved to this strange folder and renamed with random numbers and letters. I have just realised if I manually rename the files .mov they display correctly with the thumbnails so it seems the files are intact and I will just have to rename them all.

Happy to hear you can rename the files and they are working for you bagpuss. I recommend you move them to a different folder, something like pictures/MyMovies then delete the /Gallery2/recycle and /Gallery folders.