How to open hidden files on a flash drive
How to show hidden files in USB. If you use a flash drive not only on your home computer, then you probably encountered a situation where the USB drive had to be cleaned of viruses. You could bring it in at work, on a friend’s computer, at school, at college, and so on. And by connecting it to a computer or laptop with an antivirus installed, alarming messages began to appear that the removable media was infected.
But what if, after checking with an antivirus program and removing viruses, there is nothing on your removable media? This situation can be easily corrected if you caught a virus that hid all the files and folders on the flash drive. Welcome on how to show hidden files in USB.
Not only a virus could hide everything on USB, but also, for example, your friend, who knows a little about this, and decided to play a trick on you.
In general, let’s figure out how to display all hidden files and folders on a flash drive so that you can work with them again.
First of all, connect your device to a computer or laptop that has an antivirus program installed. Then scan it for viruses and, if necessary, cure it. This will prevent you from infecting your computer via a connected USB device.
How to show hidden files in USB through Explorer
There are several ways to find and display all documents. The easiest is to use Windows Explorer.
If you have the Windows 7 operating system installed, then go to the “My Computer” or “Computer” folder and open the USB flash drive. Then go to the “Tools” tab and select “Folder Options” from the menu.
In the next window, open the “View” tab. In the “Advanced options” section, find the “Show hidden files, folders, and drives” field and put a marker in front of it. Click “Apply” and “OK”.
After that, all recorded files will be displayed, but they will be muted, and you will not be able to work with them. Select them – press Ctrl+A. Next, right-click on any selected one and select “Properties” from the context menu.
On the General tab, in the Attributes section, uncheck the Hidden box. Then click “Apply”.
This window will appear. In it, put a marker in the “To the selected items and all subfolders and files” field and click “OK”.
Then click “OK” in the “Properties” window.
After that, all files and folders will become visible.
If you have the Windows 10 operating system installed, then go to the “This PC” folder and go to the “View” tab. Then click on the “Options” button – “Change folder and search options.”
On the “View” tab, uncheck the “Hide protected operating system files” box and put a marker in front of “Show hidden files, folders, and drives.” Then click “Apply” and “OK”.
Right-click on the muted file and select “Properties”. In the properties window, uncheck the “Hidden” box and click “Apply” and “OK”. Make all necessary documents visible in this way.
When you’re done, go to Folder Options again and change everything back – select “Don’t show hidden files, folders, or drives.”
Using Total Commander on
If you are used to using Total Commander on how to show hidden files in USB instead of the standard Windows Explorer, then it can also help us. Go into it and select the letter that corresponds to the flash drive. Then click on the “Configuration” tab and select “Settings” from the list.
Next, in the list on the left, go to “Panel Contents” and check the “Show hidden / system files” box in the main window. If you have two different fields, then check both boxes: “show hidden” and “show system”. Click Apply and OK.
After everything on the device is displayed, you need to make them visible. To do this, select everything, then click on the “Files” tab and select “Change Attributes” from the list.
In the next window, uncheck the “Hidden” and “System” boxes and click “OK”.
Now you can work with everything that you have recorded on USB. This method, unlike the first, will allow you to display not only hidden files but also system ones.
Restoring a flash drive after a virus via the command line
To restore hidden files after a virus, you can also use the command line. First, insert the drive into the computer, go to the “My Computer” folder, and see which letter corresponds to the removable device. In the example, this is M:
Next, you need to open a command prompt window. In Windows 7, click on the “Start” button, then type “cmd” in the search bar and click on the corresponding item in the list of results.
If you have Windows 10, then you can start the command line like this: right-click on the “Start” button and select “Command Prompt (Admin)” from the menu.
In the command prompt window, enter the drive letter followed by a colon: m: and press “Enter”.
Next, you need to write the following command: attrib -h -s /d /s Then press “Enter”. When the process is completed, all documents on your device will become visible.
Choose one of the described methods on how to show hidden files in USB. I hope everything will work out and you will be able to work with important and necessary documents again.