What to do if the information on the flash drive has disappeared. Recover deleted files from a USB flash drive. Turn on the display of hidden files

They are the main method of transporting data. To copy files, users connect their flash drives to dozens of different computers every day. It is not surprising that malware developers very often use flash drives to spread malware.

By connecting your USB flash drive to a computer infected with viruses, you will instantly become a victim. A virus is copied to the USB flash drive, and your files are modified. In most such cases, after a flash drive is infected with a virus, the following picture is observed: no files are visible on the flash drive, it seems that the disk is completely empty. But, when checking the occupied space, it turns out that the files are taking up free space on the disk. Accordingly, nothing has been deleted, you just do not have access to the files. In this article, we will show you how to solve a similar problem.

Step # 1. Check for antivirus software.

If no files are visible on the flash drive, it means that it is infected with viruses. Therefore, you should not connect it to all computers in a row, hoping that your files will become available on one of the computers. This way you are only spreading the virus and doing a good service to the virus writer.

You can connect an infected USB flash drive only to those computers that are protected by an antivirus. Before connecting the flash drive, you need to make sure that the antivirus is up and running. Computers with disabled or unloaded antivirus will also fall victim to infection.

Step # 2. Checking the flash drive for viruses.

After connecting the flash drive, the first thing to do is. To do this, open "My Computer", right-click on the flash drive and run a virus scan.

Step # 3. Enable display of hidden files.

After the virus check is completed, you can work with the flash drive. If files are not visible on the flash drive, this means that they are hidden. To view hidden files, you need to enable the corresponding function.

To do this, in any window, hold down the Alt key and open the "Tools - Folder Options" menu.

In the window that opens, go to the "View" tab. Here you need to uncheck the box next to "Hide protected system files" and check the box next to "and drives".

Step # 4. Viewing hidden files on the USB flash drive.

After these steps, you need to open the USB flash drive again. Now you can . Hidden files and folders are displayed with semi-transparent icons, making them easy to distinguish from regular files and folders.

In order to turn hidden files and folders into normal ones, it is enough to call the object properties and uncheck the box next to the "Hidden" item.

Hello dear friends! Most recently, Brother asked for help, he lost folders and files on his external hard drive. According to him, the situation was standard, I connected an external hard drive, as usual I opened it and saw that half of the folders were simply displayed as regular files, with simple white icons, and most importantly, that these very icons showed a size of 0Kb, although there was space on the external hard drive practical filled. And so let's do everything in order and with pictures I will show what happened and what I did to restore the missing folders and files.

I asked Brother what he did to restore the missing folders? To which the answer was given - I checked the entire external hard disk for viruses, no viruses were detected, I tried different data recovery programs for the hard disk and flash drive, the result is zero.

Of course, I no longer have this external hard disk, I gave it to my brother, he, in turn, formatted the disk and threw all the working folders back. But I took screenshots, which I will demonstrate now.

This is how the picture looked after the disappearance of folders on the external hard drive. As you can see, the folders looked like regular 0Kb files, although the space on the external hard drive was full. See screenshot below.

And so let's get to the point ... What have I done to recover files on an external hard drive. I used Total Commander, you can download it from any torrent or normal site. Instead of an external hard drive, I will use my hard drive "C" as an example. Connect your media on which folders or files have disappeared, no matter what it will be, an external hard drive or a flash drive.

Open the Total Commander program, select the media.

In this window, click on the "Panel Content" tab and check the "Show hidden / system files" checkbox. Click the Apply and Ok button.

You will immediately notice that a red exclamation mark has appeared on all files.

Look carefully, if empty files were not accepted, as in my case, then only one folder should appear and there will already be other folders with your information in it.

As you can see in my case, an additional folder has appeared found.000.

It also contained folders, and already in them were lost (hidden) films, games, documents, family photos.

Next thing to do. Select all folders and files with an exclamation mark, to do this, hold down the Shift key and click on each folder and file. Next, click on the "Files" item and on the "Change Attributes" tab.

The folders from the flash drive are gone

If you have lost folders from a flash drive, then they may be hidden by a virus.
However, after cleaning the flash drive from viruses, the folders do not become visible, since the attribute “Hidden” is set in their settings.
Someone, having grieved, formats the USB flash drive, but you can restore what is lost. This possibility is evidenced by the fact that the computer shows that there is information on the flash drive and it is not empty.
Next, we'll talk about how to get back folders and files that have disappeared in appearance so that you can work with them again.

Preliminary search for the perpetrators

Who is to blame for the fact that folders or files suddenly disappear from the flash drive, and if they do not disappear, then the icons of these folders are somehow suspicious.
The culprits of all the above symptoms are a virus and an antivirus.
What does the virus do?
The virus makes hidden files and folders with which we often work, which is why most often the most important folders and files disappear.
The virus also replaces invisible folders with the same programs that look like folders and when you click on which, the process of infecting your computer is likely to start.

What does antivirus do?
The anti-virus finds all the files created by the virus and deletes them, so we get the impression that there was some folder and now it is not there, so it was infected and deleted with all the useful content.

In fact, if folders and files disappeared on the flash drive, then most likely they are simply hidden by a virus.
In order to make files and folders visible, you need to go to the properties of the folder and check the box in the properties "Show hidden files and folders".
And then make the folders visible by removing the "Hidden" status in the folder properties.

Algorithm for making a hidden folder visible

1. In Windows 7, go to the control panel.
2. Then in the control panel we find the link "Design and personalization", move the cursor to it and when the cursor arrow turns into a hand, click.
3. Click on the text link "Show hidden files and folders"
4. Select "Show hidden files, folders and drives"
5. Click "Ok"

(Picture 1)
Now from the hidden folder we make the visible one.
1. Move the cursor to the hidden folder.
2. Press the right mouse button and select "Properties"
3. On the "General" tab, remove the "Hidden" attribute and apply the changes to all attached files and folders.

(Figure 2)

conclusions

So, now you know what to do if you have lost folders from your computer, flash drive or other media, in case you encounter a similar difficulty, you can easily make folders and files visible.
If your folders are visible, but you cannot open them, and the folder icons look unnatural, then this is a signal to clean the USB flash drive from viruses and execute algorithms for missing and invisible folders.

See you in the next lessons.

Happy Defender of the Fatherland Day, dear men. According to statistics, the majority of computer users are the stronger sex. But the trend is towards the fact that soon this difference will become minimal, or even disappear altogether. But, in any case, today's article will be a gift from me to men. On March 8, I will try not to offend our weaker sex and give them a gift too 🙂
Probably there are those among you who faced such a problem when you inserted a USB flash drive into someone else's computer, worked there, came home, opened the USB flash drive on your computer and you see that files on the flash drive are missing, or even none at all. You immediately start to remember how and where you managed to delete these files. But there may be documents that are very important for you and so on. How could this have happened? What to do?

This could happen if viruses live on the computer where you inserted the USB flash drive. Some types of viruses change the attributes of files and folders to "hidden" and / or "system"... To check if you actually deleted files or just a virus changed the attribute of a file or folder to "hidden", you need to check the amount of memory used on the flash drive. Let's say you know that with the files your flash drive weighed about 3 gig, and now you don't see a single file on the flash drive, but it still weighs the same. This means that the virus has changed the attribute of files and folders to "hidden" and / or "system", and the files themselves have not disappeared anywhere and can be returned. Well, if the amount of occupied memory tends to zero, then sorry, someone deleted your files, but this does not mean that they cannot be returned, but this, as they say, is a completely different story. Today we will talk about the first case, i.e. About how to remove file attributes "hidden" and / or "system".
Go.

If you have lost (disappeared) files and folders from the flash drive, but the amount of memory remains the same. Solution # 1! (doesn't always help).

We press Start-> next Control Panel-> next (in XP "Folder Options")... In the window that opens, go to the second tab "View"... Here, at the very end, we rearrange the button from to "Show hidden files, folders and drives".

And that's all. All hidden files will be visible on the computer. Next, go to the USB flash drive, and if all the folders that you previously considered deleted are visible on it, then select them all and right-click on them and select "properties".

In the opened window uncheck the "hidden" attribute and click apply. Further in the folder parameters, you can return the settings to "Do not show hidden files, folders and drives"... This method does not always help. Doesn't help in difficult cases where viruses change file and folder attributes to "system"... It is impossible to change this attribute in the above described way. For such cases, there is another option.

If you have lost (disappeared) files and folders from the flash drive, but the amount of memory remains the same. Solution # 2! Free console file manager - Far Manager.

First, we need to download this miracle, and you can do it from the official website.

Important: when downloading, select the assembly specifically for your bit depth, i.e. if you have x32(same x86) bit windows, then load Far Manager precisely for such a system, and, accordingly, if the system x64 then Far Manager for such a system. I wrote in detail about the bit depth of windows, if anyone is interested, read it.

After downloading, we install this program. I will not dwell on the installation itself. By setting Far Manager first of all, let's change the interface language from English to our mighty and truthful Russian language. To do this, launch Far and press the button on the keyboard F9... A menu will appear at the top of the program in which we click on the item "Options"... The settings menu will open from which we select the item Languages.

A small window will open Main language from which of course we choose Russian (Russian).

Next on the keyboard while holding down the button Shift press the button F9 and confirm the saving of the parameters. And that's all, we enjoy the program in our native Russian language. I almost forgot. Another useful touch in setting up the program for beginners. We press F9 and in the parameters select the item "Interface settings"... In the menu that opens, set a cross on the line "Always show menu" and click below "Proceed"... Next, do not forget to press again Shift + F9, thereby saving the changes in the interface settings.
Now closer to the problem of mysterious disappearance of folders and files
So. To switch to a removable media (flash drive) in the Far program, press at the same time Alt + F1 (for the left panel) or Alt + F2 (for the right panel), there is no difference. Next, a window will open which will display all local (hard) drives and removable media (replaceable, flash drive) connected to the computer at the moment.

Selecting from all disks removable (if several flash drives are connected, the one you need can be selected by letter)... Selecting the required flash drive in the first sector of the Far Manager program window will display all files and folders located on the selected flash drive. Among them, select the desired folder and click Ctrl + A... This window will open.

As you can see in my case the attributes are set for the file "ess_nt32_rus.msi" "hidden" and "Systemic" (installed cross in front of these points)... We remove them by clicking on them and click on the button at the bottom of the window "Install"... We do the same with the rest of the files. If there are many files, you can select a group of files and folders simply by right-clicking on the desired folder and file. If you need to select absolutely all the files in the folder, then just click * on the numeric keypad. All files and folders will be highlighted and you can set the necessary attributes on all of them. Next, we enjoy the fact that our secret files and folders have become available and visible again

Unformat: recovering data on a USB flash drive

Unformat is a very effective program for recovering lost / accidentally deleted files on flash media. Remember, if you accidentally wiped files, do not rush to write something there. The files are still intact, only marked as free for rewriting. They are visible only in specialized programs.

Features of Unformat:

• Supported devices connected to the USB port (flash drives, disks, etc.);
• The ability to recover data from a formatted disk;
• Supports HDD and SSD;
• All existing (except for quite exotic) types of memory cards are supported;
• The ability to create and save an image of a flash drive or disk, that is, there can be many recovery attempts;
• Simple, intuitive interface with a step-by-step wizard.

Just select the desired flash drive in the list, click next, wait for the end of the scan. We carefully study the scan results, select the data that needs to be restored. Scanning takes about 10-15 minutes, scanning a section is the same. The files are saved for a couple of minutes.

The program works with remote partitions, detects file types, and also gives the quality of the scan result. Everything that the program does can be observed in the log. Files are sorted by type and can be seen in the detected files section. It happens that the file types do not match what the extension produces, but manual editing solves the problem. Interestingly, even when overwriting, many files are saved, formatting also does not destroy everything.

Epilogue.
Well friends. I hope I saved you from unnecessary worries about the lost data on flash drives and any removable and non-removable media. And read the article on how to protect a USB flash drive from such problems associated with the activities of various viruses. And here is the second part of the article. So, stay with me and you will learn many more interesting and new things.

For those who have not figured out how and what to do according to the article, I offer a video instruction.

Questions are often asked: “ How can a USB flash drive be repaired?”, “I insert a USB flash drive, and the device is not formatted to me!”, “How to recover data from a USB flash drive?”. In this regard, I began to write several self-made articles on the topic of flashes. I present to your attention the first of them!

June 21 update. If you have lost files (documents) from one or more folders - go to the article :

Q .: How to recover data from a USB flash drive?

A.: It's not as difficult as it might seem at first glance! And in many cases, even a novice user can do it.

Option 1: (Easiest):

The flash drive is working fine, and the file (program, photo, document, etc.) was accidentally deleted.

and forward, from the point of downloading this program in the second version!

Option 2: (Harder)

After connecting to the computer, the USB flash drive is detected, but when you try to open it, it says “Insert disk” or “The disk in the device is not formatted”, or it simply does not have anything on it, and it seems empty.

Do not be afraid! If she is even a little alive, then you can recover files from a flash drive with a fairly high probability! So let's get started! In order to ensure that the system “recognizes” our flash drive, we go to the following address: "Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Storage -> Disk Management" .

We confirm that we in our right mind want to format it, and wait for the end of the operation.

After this procedure, we got a working, but alas, empty USB flash drive. Now let's move on, sobsno, to the data recovery process!

Under no circumstances after formatting NOTHING cannot be written to a recoverable flash drive !!

So, the archive with the program has been downloaded and unpacked somewhere on the computer. Run the file photorec_win.exe and in the window that appears, using the up and down keys, select our USB flash drive and press “Enter”:

It is usually labeled as “USB Flash Drive”.

After that, the program will ask whether to search for data only on the newly created partition or shovel the entire USB flash drive. We select the second option ("No partition"):

After that, the meticulous programulina will again ask about the file system. Let's choose “Fat / NTFS”:

So, the end of the work is close!) It remains to choose a place to save the found files:

Choosing a location to save recovered files

Again, to make the process easier, just press “Y”, which will confirm our desire to save everything directly to the folder with the program itself and go do some time-killing things. For example, by searching for a new "flash drive", since there is a fairly high probability that the situation will repeat itself in the future.