Quote: Originally Posted by
Scouts88 
An addendum,
I have been opening the files straight from my external hard drive. When I attempt to copy the files to my laptop it says "Item not found...this file is no longer in the F: etc..."
When I unplug the hard drive and plug it back in, I can view about 50-60% of the pictures in thumbnails and even open them...but after a couple of minutes it gives me the same message about the file maybe being deleted.
Just a thought maybe worth a try, you say that the disk shows "many gbs" being used, have you tried plugging in the external hard drive on a friends computer ( xp or vista) , to see if you can open your photos? It may be a bad driver for your external hard drive that is fouling you up. If it does work else where then we will have some place to work from.