Count items in datasource or inside repeater - vb.net

Question

I found some other questions about this argument but I can't get anything to work.
I have a repeater with datasource, this is my repeater code:
<div class="container dafareoggi" id="divDaFareOggi">
<div runat="server" id="divSegnaposto"></div>
<asp:Repeater runat="server" ID="rptDaFareOggi" DataSourceID="SqlAttivitaDaFareOggi">
<ItemTemplate>
<div id="<%# Eval("id") %>">
<div class="div-titolo" title="<%# Eval("Titolo") %>"><%# Eval("Titolo") %></div>
<div class="div-testo" title="<%# Eval("Note") %>"><%# Eval("Note") %></div>
<div>
<table style="width: 100%;margin-top:0.5em;padding-right:0.2em;">
<tr>
<td style="width: 50%; text-align: left;">
<asp:ImageButton runat="server" ImageUrl="~/images/gabri.png" Width="2.3em" Height="2.3em" ToolTip='<%#Eval("tecnico")%>' Enabled="false" Visible='<%# IIf(Eval("idutente") = 8, True, False) %>'/>
<asp:ImageButton runat="server" ImageUrl="~/images/giuse.png" Width="2.3em" Height="2.3em" ToolTip='<%#Eval("tecnico")%>' Enabled="false" Visible='<%# IIf(Eval("idutente") = 2, True, False) %>'/>
<asp:ImageButton runat="server" ImageUrl="~/images/robi.png" Width="2.3em" Height="2.3em" ToolTip='<%#Eval("tecnico")%>' Enabled="false" Visible='<%# IIf(Eval("idutente") = 5, True, False) %>'/>
</td>
<td style="width: 50%; text-align: right; ">
<asp:LinkButton CommandName="delAttivita" CommandArgument='<%#Eval("ID")%>' runat="server" ID="lnkDelAtt" CausesValidation="False" OnClientClick="return confirm('Sei sicuro di voler eliminare questa attivita?');"><i class="fa fa-trash fa-lg" title="Elimina attività"></i></asp:LinkButton>
<asp:LinkButton CommandName="editAttivita" CommandArgument='<%#Eval("ID")%>' runat="server" ID="lnkEditAtt"><i class="fa fa-pencil-square fa-lg" title="Modifica attività"></i></asp:LinkButton>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
</div>
</ItemTemplate>
</asp:Repeater>
</div>
In the repeater there is a place card div with id divSegnaposto (2nd row) and then a bunch of div may be loaded accordingly to data read from the db.
What I want is that when there are no data to load, so divSegnaposto is the only item, to show it and, vice versa, when there are 1 ore more other divs, to hide it.
I figure that I should count the number of items inside the repeater or rows inside datasouce (I'm using EF), so I tried different approach in repeater_databound_event, but for example repeater.items.count is always 0.
How can I achieve the goal?

Answer 1

I ended up using a linq query that gets the same as the sqldatasource at itembound event and then I check if it's empty or not and show\hide the placecard accordingly. I don't like it too much because makes me mad: I already have all the information I need inside the repeater or the sql data source, so I guess I thought there was an easier, less code-consuming way to do it. But all the answers I found are more complicated than just re-do the query in code behind...