Unable To Read Certain Files On My Harddisk
 

I am using ubuntu but I am reading a windows harddisk via USB.
Apparently some files does not appear and it cannot read zip files.
What should I do?

To read and de-archive zip files, you need to install the unzip package. What other files do you expect to see on the hard drive?

folders that are saved in my C:\Desktop but doesnt appear when viewed under linux

Your windows desktop is not normally in that folder...
Depending on what version of Windoze you are using, it could be in c:/documents and settings/username/desktop or c:/users/username/desktop

what shows up and what isn't showing up?

unzip should be installed by default... and actually i've been having some trouble accessing ntfs file systems myself.. so i dunno what to tell you about that.

one thing that has helped me though, is if you have a bunch of externals plugged in at the same time make sure that you have a few plugged in in the front of your computer and a few in the back to lessen the load.