Are you looking to recover or see hidden data on your external drive or pen drive? Many viruses and other software tend to hide their files with hidden attributes than prevent you from seeing those files. If your pen drive or external hard drive was infected with such a virus then there are ways you can recover the data using command prompt.
So, how do we delete the hidden viruses without losing our data?
There are actually many ways you can do that. The most recommended is to use antivirus to remove the virus to get back all your hidden data. Now in case, you do not want to use an antivirus or if you are unable to install the antivirus then you can use this guide to see the hidden virus and recover your hidden data.
You can recover data using the command prompt and just with one single command. This method will show you the hidden files and folders that you cannot generally see. Use it with caution and delete only those files you know are viruses.
For Staying Safe from Virus, we recommend the use of Privacy Tools and Security Systems always.
How to Show Hidden Files/ Recover Data using CMD-
Open CMD in admin mode. Make sure you have admin access in order to access all the files.
STEP 1
Click on the start menu and then type CMD in the search bar
STEP 2
Now when you see the CMD tool right-click on it and select the Run as admin option.
STEP 3
Enter your hard drive/pen drive/memory card location in the command prompt. This can be done by using the driver’s letter. My hard drive is F. So, I have to type it as F: in command prompt and hit enter as shown in the image below:
STEP 4
Now to unhide the files you need to type the given command in the command prompt:
attrib -s -h /s /d *.*
You can copy-paste the above line in the command prompt and hit enter. You will now have to wait for a minute or so depending on your system specs to recover data. Once the command is completed check your pen drive/memory card/hard drive to see all the hidden data. By this method, you have recover data using the command prompt.
If you see any virus .exe files that shouldn’t be there, then delete those files. You can now easily access these hidden files from your Pendrive. This is especially useful for those people who are having issues with a virus that hides files.
