The other day we had an incident whereby all of our data on our external hard drive just went missing. All the Files and Folders in Windows gone. Not a thought that fills your heart with any kind of warmth 🙂
I briefly remembered that we had a virus a while ago with similar behavior but let me rather not indulge in technical details. All I want to share here is how we managed to actually get our files and folders back. Let’s say how we recovered them.
Although there is no guarantee that this solution will solve your “similar” problem it is really easy and well worth trying. There is much reason why your data could be missing. In our case it was not in actuality missing, it was just hidden as a result of a virus playing some tricks on us 🙂
And while I am getting ahead of myself now let me just add another strange behavior we experienced. I tried to click through each file and folder’s properties and unset the “Hidden” flag but most of the time the “Hidden” checkbox in the properties pages was grayed out or disabled as in the following figure (but don’t fear – just continue reading):
Let me start with the solution to all these headaches 🙂
1. To see if your files and folders are actually hidden and not permanently moved:
Press: [ALT] + [F] in Windows Explorer while pointing to the location of the missing files and folders. Whether this is your external drive or local drive. Browse to that specific location in Windows Explorer and then press [ALT] + [F].
The menus at the top will be expanded. Select “Tools” -> “Folder Options” and select the “View” tab at the top. Then adjust your Folder Options settings similar to the settings in the following picture (remember these steps as you will have to come and change them back when finishing ):
If your files and folders do appear now – then please continue reading. You are likely to be cured of your headache 🙂
Should you still not see any missing files or folders then please get in Contact now. We will happily assist and perhaps will have to investigate whether you should be considering soft data recovery or hard data recovery…
You can see your files and folders now, so continue here:
Question: So how to you fix these files and folders in order to just normally show up when browsing to them in your Windows Explorer?
When you right-click on any of these files and folders and then select the “Properties” menu item in the popup menu you most probably will see a form like the one in figure 1.1. You can not unset the Hidden flag as this tick box is grayed out.
Okay – so to solve this problem you will need a little of old Dos skills. But I will guide you through the process.
Anywhere in Windows 7 simply press [WIN] + [R]. That is the Windows button and the “R” button altogether.
A small window namely the “Run” window will appear. See figure 1.3:
In the “Open” box type the following: “Cmd”. (Without parenthesis).
Press the “Ok” button.
The “Command Prompt” window will display. It is the black window as in the following figure:
Okay so let say your missing files and folders is on your external drive. And the drive letter for your external drive is at “F:\”. You need to type in the Command Prompt the following: “CD F:\” and press [ENTER] key. Obviously “CD F:\” is without parenthesis once again 🙂
The prompt in the Command window will point to your F:\ drive now.
And next, you type the following command to unset the “Hidden” and “System” attributes which will bring your files back. Command to type now: “attrib -h -s [FolderName]”.
Okay please substitute the [FolderName] placeholder with the actual name of the folder.
This command will remove the “Hidden” and “System” attribute of the folder.
When you open the external drive in your Windows Explorer your files should be displayed normally.
You can now change your Folder Options settings back to “Hide protected operating system files (recommended)”. This is advisable though 🙂
Once again – should you experience any difficulty please give us a shout. We share your frustrations and would love to be of assistance. To contact us please click here.
