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How to unhide your folders and files hidden by virus?

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How-to-unhide-files-and-folders-hidden-by-virus

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Unhide your folders and files hidden by the virus.

 Now you see your files, now you don’t?

You installed or updated your antivirus, and your files just disappeared. Oh my goodness!
You are now in a panic. It seems that you lost all your precious data, your report (with deadlines), presentations, list of clients and more. You blamed your antivirus and yourself. What can you do?

How to unhide files hidden by virus

First, don’t blame yourself,  it is the right thing you should do. Having an antivirus and keep it updated is wise. It just happen you installed or updated it after the virus is already infecting your files.
Second, don’t blame your antivirus,  it isn’t the reason, why your files are gone. It is the virus that hides it, and replaced it (to make it unnoticed the virus resembles your files). However, your antivirus is smart enough, detects the virus and deleted it.

How to recover your files?

Recommended reading:

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Now that is your problem, but I will help you find a solution.

Step 1

  • Go to my documents, organize, folder and search options and click the view tab.
  • Under the Hidden files and folders, select the show hidden files, folders and drives.
  • Uncheck the “hide extensions for known files” and “hide protected operating system files”.

Now you can see your hidden files in semi transparent and  as you can see the extensions of your files are now visible .docx, .pptx, .txt and so on.

unhide files hidden by virus
  • Right click your hidden folder (it’s semi transparent) click properties.
  • Under the general tab, uncheck the hidden. In some cases this solves the hidden files problem but most of the time this doesn’t help. If you solved your problem, good for you, if not don’t worry let’s proceed to the next step.

Step 2

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Just copy the code below (start from the bottom to completely copy the code) and paste it in notepad, save it as folder.vbs (change the .txt extension into .vbs) . Then paste it inside your HDD, SD card or USB drive from where your files were hidden and run it.
Don’t forget to change the “d:” in cDrive with your current drive letter. 

‘ Reset the file attributes of All the Folder in a specific Drive
‘ Change d: to the drive letter where you want the change will happen.
cDrive = “d:”Set FSO = CreateObject(“Scripting.FileSystemObject”)
ShowSubfolders FSO.GetFolder(cDrive)
WScript.Echo “Done with fix.”Sub ShowSubFolders(Folder)
str = “”
For Each Subfolder in Folder.SubFolders
str = str & ” ” & Subfolder.Path
subFolder.Attributes = 0
ShowSubFolders Subfolder
Next
End Sub

You should see all your folders now. How about my image of precious moments, word documents and other files? Please take note that the above code is created to unhide folders alone the files outside your folders isn’t included. To unhide your files outside your folders let’s jump to the next step.

Step 3

  • Click start, run, type cmd.
  • Type your drive letter with colon Ex. e:, press enter.
  • Then type

How to unhide file hidden by virus(without quotes)

Congratulations, you just retrieve your files and folders. If you have any better idea on how to unhide files and folders hidden by virus. Please share it with is, by commenting below. It will be highly appreciated.

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Comments

  1. after given below command on cmd , Its gave access denied error

    D:\sseellff>attrib d:\*.* /d /s -h -r -s
    Access denied – D:\$RECYCLE.BIN\S-1-5-21-947131737-2214416594-2878616749-1000
    Please do the need full help.

    Reply

    • Hello Prashant, this guide helped many people already but this is not a “one shoe fits all” solution. May be your issue is beyond the scope of this guide. Can you please do a “CHKDSK” on your drive D: before running the command?

      Reply

  2. It’s very easy to recover files according to Your procedure. I think it’s the simplest way. Thank you !!!!

    Reply

  3. After searching for like 20 sites where they just copy and paste all solutions but you have the unique procedure and the only working one. Kuddos

    Reply

  4. Wow…wow…wow. Ma’ man thanks so much! U just help me recover all my important document, especially my certificates. U r d best. Thank u so much!

    Reply

  6. at command promt
    Once you’re on the correct drive, type:
    “attrib *.* -h -s /s /d” (without quotes) and hit Enter.

    be careful with spaces

    Reply

  7. how to run the folder.vbs ??? it’s just FIL with open is only option
    other thing the shortcut is not in removable disk it’s on hard drive D
    please help me.

    Reply

  8. Wow thank you so much! YOU ARE LITERALLY A LIFE SAVER ALL MY REQUIREMENTS IN SCHOOL WERE THERE AND ALL THE MEMORIES OHMYGOD THANK U SO MUCH U DONT EVEN KNOW ♥♥♥

    Reply

  11. for anyone having errors using the vbs file
    try this

    cDrive = “g:”
    Set FSO = CreateObject(“Scripting.FileSystemObject”)
    ShowSubfolders FSO.GetFolder(cDrive)
    WScript.Echo “Done with fix.”
    Sub ShowSubFolders(Folder)
    str = “”
    For Each Subfolder in Folder.SubFolders
    str = str & ” ” & Subfolder.Path
    subFolder.Attributes = 0
    ShowSubFolders Subfolder
    Next
    End Sub

    just change the drive letter

    Reply

  12. This helped me save my usb. they also stored the files in a map with no name. just renaming it brought them back.

    Reply

  13. Comment Text* hey dude its not working.. the vbs file is showing some error.. And although cmd is showing that.. “Path not found”..
    please help me..

    Reply

  14. Thanks a lot… very helpful and easy to follow.. I’m about to throw my usb but because of your help it save and recovered…wishing you the best and more people can use your help

    Reply

    • Hi Thando, you are very much welcome! It’s good to hear that you are able to unhide your files which was hidden by virus after following this guide.

      Reply

  20. my file & folder semi appear but folder.vbs didn’t run , show error :

    Script: H:\folder.vbs
    Line: 19
    Char: 16
    Error: Syntax error
    Code: 800A03EA
    Source: Microsoft VBScirpt compilation error
    Plz guid me …

    Reply

  25. Hello there, my mom uses and old laptop with windowsxp on it and the script compilator keeps returning syntax erors for the ‘ ” or other signs, i removed the comments but even so it stops compiling in the first line of text when it reaches the “F:” part, any idea how to change it to work?

    Reply

    • Hello Josip, I just updated the code, you can try to copy it now. Tell me if it works, again don’t forget to change the drive letter. By the way, upon pasting the code into notepad please delete the “read more etc…” at the bottom before saving.

      Reply

  26. Hello,
    How or what made the decision to change the extension into .vbs, you have time to explain why these three letters and to pertaining from source?

    The First step never cured and the Tabs from my Windows are set different from your windows.

    I am going to try the Code, how was this developed into process steps in writing if you have time explaining?

    Reply

    • Hi Giuseppe, the following are command script, if we use the.txt it won’t run. This script is developed just to unhide folders and sub-folders that’s been hidden by viruses (it will only work on windows environment).

      Reply

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