Windows 7: Folder sorting weirdness

Hi all

I have a weird issue with alphabetic sorting with my Windows 7 PC.

I have my music collection stored on an external FAT32 formatted HD drive. They are broken down as...
ABC: Inside will be three folders A, B & C. Inside 'A' will be artist folders starting with 'A', such as Aerosmith
DEF: Inside will be three folders D, E & F (then as above)
Etc., Up to XYZ

All the individual lettered folders Up to 'T' sort artist folders alphabetically exactly as I would expect and Windows (which doesn't have an option to ignore 'The' in folder/file naming), sorts folders with 'The' at the start of a folder name, at the end of the list. So, I would see this.

/Aerosmith
/America
/Aardvark
/The Adverts
/The Answer

However... and this is where it gets weird. From 'U' onwards (right up to 'Z', Windows puts folders with names starting with 'The' At the top of the list. So I see this:

/The Vaccines
/The Verve
/The Vines
/Van Morrison
/Visage
/Voivod

I have absolutely no idea why this is happening. I've tried creating brand new folders with new internal folder structures to ensure I hadn't made some wierd Ascii errors in the original naming but it still does it. I also have everything backed up on an NTFC formatted drive which also does the same.

Any ideas anyone? It's not a big problem, just very, very weird.

You're seeing something that isn't there.

I have Beatles between Badfinger and Bee Gees. I add "the" to Beatles and it drops to the bottom. I add "the" to Bee Gees and it too drops to the bottom.

I have the Doors between the Byrds and the Hollies. I remove "the" and Doors jumps up to the top of the list. I remove "the" from the Who, and Who drops to the bottom.

But, hey, thanks for the mental exercise.

See below

Good God, I don't believe I could be so stupid. Your example didn't make sense at first (well, it does, but not in the context I was posting on), as all your examples look to be in perfectly sensible alphabetic order and appear as I would expect. I was simply expecting everything starting with 'The' to be at the bottom of a list as it is in every folder up to 'T'. Of course, when I get to 'U' the 'T' in 'The' will always come before any other folder starting with 'U'. Duh. I'm hanging my head in shame.

Thanks for replying and pointing out my supreme dumbness.