Help! Today I tried to move several photos from my external hard drive, but the drive appears to be empty when I opened it. However, Windows Explorer shows that 17GB of space is occupied from my hard drive. What is happening?
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The case above reveals a common problem facing by thousands of electronic device users. The missing files are possibly hidden, which could happen due to mistaken setting, virus attack, system corruption and many more reasons. Don't panic when you find a disk drive is empty. Deskcover 1 2. In this article, we are going to learn 4 methods to recover hidden files from USB drive, laptop, hard drive or SD card.
How Are Files Hidden
Show Hidden Files on Windows 8 and 10. This option is easily accessible in File Explorer on Windows 8 and 10. Click the 'View' tab on File Explorer's ribbon and click the 'Hidden items' checkbox in the Show/hide section. File Explorer will immediately show hidden files and will remember this setting until you change it. Open File Explorer from the taskbar. Select View Options Change folder and search options. Select the View tab and, in Advanced settings, select Show hidden files, folders, and drives and OK. If you use 'ls -Ad.', it will show you all hidden (dot) files and retain the formatting and colour. The '-d' argument is used to only show the top-level files and not contents of hidden directories. Thanks for the tip, I didn't know about the -A argument.
- Files hidden in Windows PC due to wrong setting
- Files hidden in internal hard drive due to mistaken operation
- Files hidden in USB drive or memory card due to corruption or virus attack
Among all the cases, extra handling shall be applied only when you believe virus infection has happened. Please make sure to scan the infected disk drive with spyware removal software before trying the methods below.
Method 1. How to Show Hidden Files in Windows 10/8/7
In Windows PC, users can manually hide the files or folders that they don't want anyone else to see, but some people could forget it. In this case, we can choose to show hidden files in Windows Explorer.
For Windows 10 and 8
- Step 1. Open the folder which is supposed to contain the hidden files.
- Step 2. On the menu bar, click View tab, then tick the box Hidden items.
- Step 3. Check the same folder for hidden files.
The change will apply to all hidden files and items on your Windows 10/8 computer. If you want to hidden a specific item again, just right-click on it, choose Properties, then tick the box of Hide.
For Windows 7
- Step 1. Open Windows Explorer, click Organize button on the toolbar, then choose Folder and search options.
- Step 2. Click View tab, select Show hidden files, folders, and drives under Hidden files and folders.
- Step 3. Untick the box Hide protected operating system files.
- Step 4. Click OK to apply the setting.
This method also applies for files manually hidden in removable disk drives, like external hard drive, USB drive and memory card.
Method 2. How to Recover Hidden Files (100% Working)
Whether your files are somehow hidden due to various reasons, or you have deleted the folder and files, a good data recovery software can help you restore them easily.
RePicvid Data Recovery is the best software to recover photos, videos, audio, documents, archive files, etc. With this easy-to-use program, you will recover hidden files from USB drive, SD card or hard drive in Windows & Mac like a breeze.
Why Choose RePicvid Data Recovery:
- Support over 150 types of files, including photos, videos, documents, audio and more files.
- Recover lost files from laptop/desktop as well as SD card, hard drive, USB flash stick.
- Full and free preview before recovery.
- Multiple filtering options to ensure fast and accurate data recovery.
- Highest recovery rate with original quality.
- Easy 3-step recovery. No technique required.
Follow the steps below to recover hidden files:
Step 1. Run RePicvid and Choose a Recovery Mode
You will see three options (Photo/Multimedia/Office) and the All button on the main screen of the program. Please check the sample file formats on the three sections. Click any of the four options to continue.
Step 2. Select a Partition to Scan for Hidden Files
Check all the detected disk drives, including the internal and external hard drives and connected removable disks. Select the drive where your files were hidden, then click Scan button to proceed.
Tips: You can also click Advanced Settings to specify the file formats you want to recover.
Step 3. Preview and Recover Hidden Files
Once the scanning is completed, you can click the file types on the left pane and preview the found files on the right so that you know what you will recover. Check only the files you need, then click Recover button to recover hidden files from USB drive, SD card or hard drive.
Method 3. Recover Hidden Files from USB with Command Prompt
The above two methods should work for most cases. However, if you'd like to try more solutions, the CMD utility in Windows is worth a try.
- Step 1. Click the Start menu, type CMD, then right-click on Command Prompt and choose Run as administrator.
- Step 2. In Command Prompt, type the following command (replace G with the drive letter of the disk that contains the hidden files):
attrib -h -r -s /s /d G:*.* - Step 3. Hit Enter after typing the command above.
- Step 4. Re-connect the drive (if it is removable) and check the hidden files.
Method 4. Show Hidden Files with CHKDSK Command
Similar to the Command above, CHKDSK is another command for recovering hidden files. This command will check the target disk drive and try to fix possible errors so that the hidden files will appear again.
- Step 1. Run Command Prompt as administrator as described in Method 3.
- Step 2. Type chkdsk G: /f /r /x and hit Enter. (G is the drive letter of the disk that contains the hidden files)
- Step 3. Wait for a while to see if you can find the hidden files.
Command Prompt can actually do further, such as recovering corrupted SD card with DISKPART command, if the CHKDSK command doesn't work for you.
Bottom Line
In this tutorial, we have learnt 4 methods to recover hidden files from USB drive, memory card and computer hard drive. It is important to know the location of the hidden files to avoid time wasting. In addition to the solutions in this article, you can also hide and unhide files with file encryption software by adding a lock. Feel free to tell us in the comment if you have any questions or opinions.
Related Articles
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Best FTP client for MacWhen you look at your desktop, or inside any folder for that matter, on your Mac you'll see a number (one that will vary depending on how well-organized you are) of file and folder icons. What all of us have in common, however, is a huge range of system files that are hidden just out of view.
Easy way to show hidden files
Try Setapp to make all your files visible on a Mac. With the tools we offer, nothing gets lost in the shuffle.
Those of us who have lived online for long enough will remember the Delete System32 hoax, with which trolls encouraged naive PC users to delete their Windows 2000 system directory. It's not a shock that, since those days, developers have taken more care to hide away files that are essential to their operating systems.
There are, however, times when you need to access those files. Most of them are hidden away in the ~/Library folder, but the truth is that the average Mac holds a treasure trove of files and folders that you either no longer need or may want to access for troubleshooting purposes. Drop 1 5 2 x 4.
Is it normal that 'System' takes up 90GB+ of storage? What does it contain? How to get your System folder under control?
Three Ways to See Hidden Files on Mac
There's good news for anyone out there who's looking to access hidden files on their Mac: you can do exactly that, in a number of different ways, by arming yourself with a little bit of knowledge. There are a couple of Finder augmentation and replacement apps, for example, that make the process as easy as clicking a single button.
Before kicking off, however, it's important to highlight that you should play it safe when digging through hidden files on your laptop or desktop. Unless you know exactly what you're looking for you can do some serious damage to your operating system, so you'll want to proceed with caution. After all, these files are hidden for a reason!
See hidden files on Mac via Finder
As mentioned above, it doesn't take much to make the hidden files on your Mac visible. In fact, you can check out all of the hidden files on your Mac by following just three easy steps:
- In Finder, open up your Macintosh HD folder
- Press Command+Shift+Dot
- Your hidden files will become visible. Repeat step 2 to hide them again!
- In Finder, open up your Macintosh HD folder
- Press Command+Shift+Dot
- Your hidden files will become visible. Repeat step 2 to hide them again!
This process will also work elsewhere, including your Documents or Applications folders. Carbon copy cloner 5 1 8gb. However, if you know what you're looking for is in your ~/Library folder and would rather jump straight into that then you can take the following steps instead:
- In Finder, hold down Alt and click Go at the top of your screen
- Click on Library to open up the, normally hidden, folder
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Be prepared for one very cluttered looking Desktop if you decide to uncover all the hidden files there. If you're anything like the average Mac user, most of what you'll find will be made up of system files and autosaved Microsoft Word documents!
Some users have reported success finding documents that they thought were lost forever after their Mac crashed without saving, which is always a useful tip to have in the back pocket.
Unhide files on Mac with Terminal commands
Terminal, a Mac command-line interface, is included in macOS by default and allows you to use command prompts to control your Mac instead of following a potentially complex series of instructions to do the same thing in Finder.
If you're already familiar with using Terminal, then you might prefer to run the following script to reveal your hidden files:
- Open Terminal
- Enter the following: defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles true [Press Return] killall Finder
- To hide files again, change the 'true' in the step above to 'false'
It doesn't matter too much whether you use Terminal or Finder to make the hidden files on your Mac visible, though you might prefer the latter if you've never run scripts on Terminal before, as both routes accomplish the same thing.
One reason you might opt to use Terminal is that it allows you to hide any file or folder on your Mac, which is a great way to avoid that sense of residual curiosity felt by others should they come across a password protected .rar on your desktop! To hide files, just:
- Open Terminal
- Enter the following: chflags hidden [Press Space]
- Drag files or folders to be hidden from Finder into the Terminal window, which will display their paths in Terminal
- Press Return to hide
To make your files visible again, just repeat the above steps using 'chflags nohidden' in place of 'chflags hidden.' Of course, the fact that anyone else who knows this trick can also use it to unhide your files means that this isn't an adequate substitute for other security measures.
Use file managers to access hidden files
How to find the path of a file in Mac? https://software-os.mystrikingly.com/blog/all-new-free-slot-games. Apps like DCommander and Forklift, both of which perform like native macOS apps and function as extensions of Finder, represent great choices if you're at all uncomfortable using Terminal or digging around in your ~/Library Free casino cash bonus code. folder.
Because these apps allow you to make hidden files and folders visible (or invisible) using shortcuts or clicking buttons within the apps, they make the whole process incredibly simple. In Forklift, for example, you can show hidden files by:
- Clicking View
- Selecting View Options towards the bottom of the dropdown menu
- Checking the box next to Show Hidden Files
There's also a button in the toolbar to show and hide hidden files. DCommander has a similar function available, with a Show System Files command, but you need to add it manually to the app's toolbar:
As you might guess from those subtle differences in terminology, we would suggest that Forklift is more suitable for someone looking for something that really looks and acts like Finder. DCommander, with a larger range of features and toolbar buttons enabled by default, is still intuitive but feels a little more dense.
Whichever you settle on remember that just because these apps make accessing hidden files easy it doesn't mean that you can't do some real damage if you start messing around with the wrong thing!
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Leave hidden files to automatic cleanup
For some Mac users, the question of how to see hidden files is nothing more than succumbing to curiosity. For others, it's a necessity for troubleshooting a piece of software or device that's not performing as it should.
Somewhere in between are those in the pursuit of a few spare gigabytes as their hard drive rapidly fills up. If you're one of those people looking to clean up useless hidden data then an app like CleanMyMac X might be exactly what you need:
- Open up the app and select Smart Scan
- Hit Scan
- Select Review Details underneath Cleanup to see how much System Junk you can safely delete
- Hit Run to remove those unneeded files
An app like CleanMyMac X will free up space just as effectively, probably more so, than you'll be able to by randomly deleting hidden files and hoping for the best. If you do end up going this route then don't consider learning more about hidden content a waste of time — at least you know what to watch out for if someone tries to troll you into deleting vital system files!
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Best of all, DCommander, Forklift, and CleanMyMac X apps mentioned above are all available for a free trial through Setapp, a collection of more than 150 macOS apps from top developers all over the world.
Meantime, prepare for all the awesome things you can do with Setapp. Play roulette online for money.
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