Missing Folders in my USB after Virus attacks

Missing Folders in my USB after Virus attacks

One of the favourite hang-out places of a virus is our flash drives. We are so confident that we don’t give any concern about it because we have a good Antivirus that will do the all the cleaning. Other than infecting your computer if you open the flash drive without scanning it, it  will hide some or all the folders inside your USB. The first thing we will do is to show the hidden files by changing the settings under folder options allowing to view hidden files and objects. But even if we do this trick, it won’t still allow us to view the hidden files and even if we do, we cannot change the "View Property" of the folder.

There are few alternative tricks that we can do to be able to address this issue. Be sure that you have already scanned the flash drive and you have already enabled the “Show hidden files and folder” from the folder options. There are instances that you will be able to view hidden files but you cannot unhide it. The solution is that, copy those hidden folders from your flash drive then paste it on your computer. But this will not work always to other flash drives/pen drives, because in some instances it will not allow you to copy the files from your pen drive. Below are the simple solutions to solve this problem.

When you enable the “Show hidden files and folders” and you are lucky if it shows the hidden files but you cannot see the folder that you want. Locate the folder with no name but just a low dash/ underscore folder mark. Open it and you will see all the folders that are missing.

Another way is to unhide the files using the command prompt.

1. Click the “Start” and click run, type “cmd” and press enter.
2. Type the drive letter of your flash drive example D: , E: , etc. and type dir /ah , you will now be able to see the hidden files and folders.
3. Type attrib [folder or file name] –r –a –s –h example: attrib image.jpg –r –a –s –h if the folder name is too long then type the first six letters, example: a folder name like “component” type compon and add "~1” that is attrib compon~1 –r –a –s –h
4. Always type the command line dir /ah after you unhide some files or folders.
5. Check your flash drive to see if the folder was unhidden.

Another one is unhide hidden files and objects by editing the registry.

1. Type regedit on the search field or the run dialog box.
2. Select HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersion ExplorerAdvanced
3. Select Hidden, right click it, and select modify. Change the value to 1.
4. Click ok and exit the registry editor.
5. Check your flash drive if you can now view hidden files and folders.