Newbie question - Finder files/folders don't appear

Hi All:

I recently was given a new macbook pro as my office computer and have been slowly chipping away at the learning curve that one would naturally expect with switching to a mac.

With a bit of research, I've solved nearly every quirk that I've encountered, but there is one that I cannot overcome.

Does anybody know how to make files and folders on a windows based (e.g. SMB based) show up on the mac? I can literally click on a folder in Finder and it will say "0 items" down at the bottom, then switch over to Fusion, open the same folder, and see all of the files and subj-folders in all their glory.

Consequently, I have to open fusion, browse to the folder I want, copy the folder to a shared/synced location, switch back to the mac side, browse to the shared/synced location, and then open the file or folder that I require.

Surely there is an easy way to fix this, but what that is, I do not know.

Any assistance would be most appreciated! I realize that I'm new to this forum, but I appreciate your assistance nevertheless.

Geek_Law.

Welcome to the forum! Perhaps you should try connecting with the Go > Connect to Server… menu option in Finder. Here are some instructions on Apple's Web site that should help you out.

Thanks for your reply. I tried the instructions. Depressingly, following them appears to have broken my links and now I cannot even connect to the network drives, much less view them.

Despair



EDIT: After force quitting finder, then hitting "Restart ..." and waiting for 5x minutes, then doing a dirty reboot by holding down the power button and restarting, I can get to the network files again. That's good. Unfortunately, I still cannot see many of the files or subfolders on the windows SMB network drive from finder.

Ugh.

I'm not totally sure if this will help Spotlight: How to re-index folders or volumes (reindexing finder). I did this last night and just the volume on it.. this was for mac files tho. But I think you should be able to see files on your pc side (but I'm using parallels) by also enabling share. The other option that you can try is downloading a free prog called EasyFind. I found that it tends to find files that finder didn't or won't and gives a heck of alot of info (ie location etc) and is a little closer to if you are used to search in PC

Hope that helps..

PS also make sure that your finder options are correct for what you want to do.. there are option that you can select... New to mac? go thru system prefs and this will also help you to familiarize yourself with your mac..

Just as a check when I see SMB share problems there are two things that I always check:
1. Is file sharing active on the PC side (probably is or you probably wouldn't see them in Fusion).
2. In the File Sharing preference pane make sure file sharing is checked. Then click options and make sure SMB is checked as one of the protocols.

Aqua said:

I'm not totally sure if this will help Spotlight: How to re-index folders or volumes (reindexing finder). I did this last night and just the volume on it.. this was for mac files tho. But I think you should be able to see files on your pc side (but I'm using parallels) by also enabling share. The other option that you can try is downloading a free prog called EasyFind. I found that it tends to find files that finder didn't or won't and gives a heck of alot of info (ie location etc) and is a little closer to if you are used to search in PC

Hope that helps..

PS also make sure that your finder options are correct for what you want to do.. there are option that you can select... New to mac? go thru system prefs and this will also help you to familiarize yourself with your mac..

Click to expand...

Thanks again for the tips guys. I'll try the above recommendations and see if it solves my issues. It's likely just a simple setting, but it seems odd that the mac side would report that there are no files there, rather than saying something like, "cannot read directory" or something more informative.

Anyway, the indexing sounds promising. I'll report back.