How to recover files hidden by a Virus

Your desktop or laptop or external drives was infected by a virus then you used to antivirus software to remove the threats. But later you’ve found that some files gone missing. You try searching for them and used ‘Show hidden files, folders, and drives‘ through Folder Options but no use. No need to worry about that.

The virus might have just changed the attributes to ‘hidden‘ even after you’ve removed threats from computer using antivirus software. Now, let’s recover the hidden files with simple steps.

Steps to recover the hidden files:

#1. Run the Command Prompt (CMD)

Go to start menu, type ‘CMD’ in search box and hit enter.

#2. Go to the drive which you want to view the hidden files

For example: If you want to change the drive from C: to G:, type G: and press enter.

#3. Type dir/ah 

Now, you can able to view all the hidden folders and files.

Here, RECYCLER and documents are hidden folders, abcimage.jpg is a file.

#4. Next remove hidden attributes from folder or file

Type attrib {folder name or file name with extension} -r -a -s -h command in command prompt

Eg., 1. For folder: attrib documents -r -a -s -h

2. For File: attrib abcimage.jpg -r -a -s -h

 If you’ve folders with more than 6 chars, type first 6 chars then use ~1 instead of whole chars.

eg., for folder named importantdocuments use import~1

In command prompt, attrib import~1 -r -a -s -h

Finally, you can able to found all hidden files in your G: drive.

Thanks. Happy Holidays!