I have been developing backup scripts, to backup computer files and directories across networks and between all OS's. The problem I ran into was the files from Vista backed up to and XP system.  When I tried to "brows" for the directory Windows would not display the directory. But if I typed the command into the address bar the files showed up and labeled the directory as hidden. In some cases if a file gets sent from one system to another via xcopy it will attach a hidden and read only attributes. This usually happens between OS's like XP, Vista, and Linux. You can not fix this issue via windows, you must go to the CMD window and remove all attributes at the same time. I listed the commands below:

c:\attrib c:\one.two -s -h -r

ATTRIB [+R | -R] [+A | -A ] [+S | -S] [+H | -H] [[drive:] [path] filename] [/S [/D]]
+ 	Sets an attribute.
- 	Clears an attribute.
R 	Read-only file attribute.
A 	Archive file attribute.
S 	System file attribute.
H 	Hidden file attribute.
/S 	Processes files in all directories in the specified path.
/D 	Process folders as well.