This is a common symptom when your computer, hard drive or the PD is infected with a malware. You are 100% sure that the disk contains data but that is not visible in the file explorer.
Now there can be multiple ways ti identify and fix it. They are mentioned as following:
1. Simplest is to check if the files are hidden and your explorer settings do not allow you to view hidden files.
To overcome this go to the file/folder settings View -> And select the 'Show System or Hidden files'
2. You definitely have to eventually scan the disk by Antivirus. Do that and the disk will become clean again
3. There is a short DOS level command that could help you overcome the situation.
Steps:
a. Open the DOS command. For the newbies, its a Black command terminal window
You can start it by goint to Start -> Run ->cmd
b. Change your working drive to the target drive. For eg. if your pendrive or disk is E: drive run the following command on DOS terminal
That is, type the following command and press Enter
E:\>attrib -h -r -s /s /d e:\*.*
Now this magical command will not display anything on the terminal. But your work will be done!
This will recursively make all your files and folder on the target drive as Non-hidden.
So now go to File System explore of Windows and open the drive. Voila! Your items are now visible!
Now there can be multiple ways ti identify and fix it. They are mentioned as following:
1. Simplest is to check if the files are hidden and your explorer settings do not allow you to view hidden files.
To overcome this go to the file/folder settings View -> And select the 'Show System or Hidden files'
2. You definitely have to eventually scan the disk by Antivirus. Do that and the disk will become clean again
3. There is a short DOS level command that could help you overcome the situation.
Steps:
a. Open the DOS command. For the newbies, its a Black command terminal window
You can start it by goint to Start -> Run ->cmd
b. Change your working drive to the target drive. For eg. if your pendrive or disk is E: drive run the following command on DOS terminal
That is, type the following command and press Enter
E:\>attrib -h -r -s /s /d e:\*.*
Now this magical command will not display anything on the terminal. But your work will be done!
This will recursively make all your files and folder on the target drive as Non-hidden.
So now go to File System explore of Windows and open the drive. Voila! Your items are now visible!
