Windows 7 - When searching in the search bar I see: "No items match your search."

Hi.

Searching via the Explorer search bar/start menu for music no longer produces any results. My music has always been stored on an external drive, plus it's added in Music>Libraries - same results in both locations.

If I search a particular folder that I know contains what I'm searching for, I still find nothing. (For example: Searching for "bowie" or "heroes" in a big folder of David Bowie albums).
I've recently tried adding this external drive to the index, just in case, although actually, it wasn't being indexed before I had the problem and I would still expect the files to be found -- albeit slower -- without indexing! I'm not aware of having changed any settings that could cause this.

- Searching for music in other locations on my hard drive works as normal.
- Windows Search is on in Control Panel>Programs and Features. Indexing Service is on also. Plus, both are started and set to Automatic in Services.msc.
- Music filetypes are selected in Advanced>Indexing Options>File Types.
- I've tried rebuilding the index.
- Windows troubleshooting wizard finds no problems.
- I've tried restoring the default search options in Explorer's folder options,
- I've tried these steps also, with no luck...

I'm completely stumped. It's like these .mp3 files are not there, even though I can browse for them and play them as normal. It sometimes affects other files also, it randomly finds some things (like text files), but not other things.

I've tried using the software "Everything", which works, but I'd still rather have the native search available. This is the sort of niggle that will bug me enough to re-install, but obviously I'd prefer not to. Don't want to transfer 90gb worth of ripped music to my hard drive either.

Sorry about the long post.

Any ideas?

When you have your music stored on the external drive that is where the actual music files are, so when you move a folder to WMP or ITunes your actually just moving the title of the song, album, artist, not the music files themselves. So when you do a search you have search to drive the actual files are on. Hope this helps.

This is an excellent tutorial on Windows 7 search: Windows Search - Configure and Use

Thanks for the reply, but I'm not quite with you. Perhaps I wasn't clear, but I am searching from the actual location (my external hard drive - using the default Windows 7 Explorer search bar, found in the top right). In my case:
Computer ► Seagate [E:] ► Music
This is how it has always been since I first installed Windows 7 many months ago. Even if I searched:
Libraries ► Music
Which I realize isn't an actual copy of the files in question, but rather a shortcut to their location, I could still previously search.
Or, if I searched:
Computer ►
I am still usually able to search my external drive.

Thanks. That is indeed an excellent tutorial. I've had a read through, but it doesn't help with my issue.

Something has either stopped working. Or I've done something that has stopped it working!

You know, I've had such an issue off and on, most recently on a clean install I did. I wasn't able to search an external drive I had for files I could clearly see within them. And, to be honest, I'm not sure what changed but they're now searchable. I know I didn't add the folder to the index because I don't need/want it to be indexed. I know this offers no help, only commiseration/empathy.

So adding the drive or folder to be indexed doesn't fix the problem?

Unfortunately not! There's no change whatsoever if I do.

This is for Vista but applies to Win 7 as well: Windows Search returns no results after indexing external hard drive

Are you looking to search inside files or just looking for file names or part of file names? If the latter then give Everything a try. I think it's excellent for this. Don't know about external drives though as I have none connected to my Win 7 system.

It says: "Everything" only indexes local or removable NTFS volumes."

Thanks for the link. I tried changing the external drive letter, but no luck.

"Everything" works well and lives up to it's name. I did mention that I'd already tried it in my original post.

But, one of the best things about Windows Seven is (in my opinion) that you don't have to rely on third-party tools to replace native functions - certainly less so than XP. The search, when it worked, suited me fine.

I wonder if an in-place upgrade would cure my problem? If not I'm getting very close to just re-installing...

Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet, set your mind to it and clean install, once done your smileing again and alls well. Good luck and i hope everything works out OK.