FIND doesn't work

I bought an external USB hard drive for my G3 platinum, and I usually run os
9.2.1, but I also have os X on board. After the move of most of my files
(but not system files) to the external drive, but before adding os X, I
suddenly discovered that FIND at the root level doesn't work. It's not
"grayed out," but it does nothing. Any suggestions? (I threw away Finder
Preferences, but it didn't help.)
Ed Kearns