> To any knowledgable persons reading this message: does this sound like there's something wrong with my hard drive, or could it be that the actual Windows Explorer software needs to be reinstalled? I'm sincerely hoping it is the latter, since my CD burner died back in March and I haven't been able to back up any of the photos I've taken with the digital camera since then. If it is the hard drive, I need to move quickly because I think the warranty is about to expire.

Sounds like a problem with Windows, especially if a disk check didn't help. Anyway, since it's local to just that folder, it's pretty unlikely to be a hard drive problem -- and even if it is, Explorer should return an error, not crash.

You can't exactly reinstall Windows Explorer, but there are probably other workarounds.

> I went to Microsoft's support site and found one article in a FAQ that sounded like a similar problem, but it's only similar and the fix involves editing the registry which I'm not sure is something I should attempt.

You can always back-up the registry before you start (Registry -> Export Registry File from within Regedit). Do you have a link to the MS article you mentioned?

Another thing to consider trying is opening up a command prompt by typing "cmd" from the Windows "Run" dialogue (accessed from Start -> Run). Then CD into the directory and see if you can see them through that.

Stephen