Member Avatar for lupyana muhiche

I was wandering if i can get help on how to view the contents of my hidden files. I marked them hidden but now I cant see neither the files nor their contents. Help me please! all my crucial data are in the files.
by the servantking.

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As reported, the usual first replies from and (check Explorer’s hidden‑items setting) are the right starting point, and was correct that a command‑line inspection can help. If toggling Explorer’s view doesn’t reveal your data, the checklist below helps find the root cause without making things worse.

Common causes and a short triage: files may be marked with the System attribute (so Explorer still hides them), a removable‑drive “shortcut”/autorun malware can hide originals and replace them with shortcuts, files could be encrypted with EFS (tied to your user key), permissions/ownership may block access, or the file system could be corrupted. Don’t run mass fixes yet — make a bit‑copy/image of the drive or copy the whole volume to another disk first. (learn.microsoft.com)

Safe, targeted checks you can run (PowerShell — test these on a small folder first). List hidden/system items:

Get-ChildItem -Path 'D:\path\to\folder' -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue |
  Where-Object { ($_.Attributes -band [System.IO.FileAttributes]::Hidden) -or
                 ($_.Attributes -band [System.IO.FileAttributes]::System) } |
  Select-Object FullName, Attributes

If these are the files you expect and you want to clear Hidden/System bits for a tested folder:

$mask = [System.IO.FileAttributes]::Hidden -bor [System.IO.FileAttributes]::System
Get-ChildItem -Path 'D:\path\to\folder' -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue |
  ForEach-Object { $_.Attributes = $_.Attributes -band (-bnot $mask) }

PowerShell’s Get-ChildItem + -Force shows items Explorer might hide; use a small test folder first and keep a backup. (devblogs.microsoft.com)

If files remain inaccessible after that: run a full antimalware scan (removable‑drive shortcut malware is common and often needs cleaning before restoring visibility), check whether files are EFS‑encrypted (recovery requires the original user certificate/keys), and if it’s a permissions issue consider taking ownership and resetting ACLs (tools: takeown/icacls or the Security tab). If the filesystem looks RAW or inconsistent, stop writing to the disk and consider imaging + professional recovery. (easeus.com)

Notes and cautions: don’t run wide, recursive attribute changes on the system drive without a verified backup; unchecking “hide protected operating system files” and deleting things blindly can break Windows. If unsure, make an image and ask for help with the image rather than the original media. (learn.microsoft.com)

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Member Avatar for ProgrammersTalk

view - folders view -- check the show hidden files/folders :)

Member Avatar for melissajkelly

I was wandering if i can get help on how to view the contents of my hidden files. I marked them hidden but now I cant see neither the files nor their contents. Help me please! all my crucial data are in the files.
by the servantking.

What version of Windows?

Member Avatar for arjunsasidharan

view - folders view -- check the show hidden files/folders :)

In your Menu Bar- Tools -> Folder Options -> View(Tab)-> See below you mite find two radio buttons indicating Do not show hidden files and Show hidden Files. Select the Show hidden files and click on Apply-> Ok. This feature is in Windows 98, XP.. don't know about vista as i haven't used it yet. :icon_cheesygrin:

Member Avatar for shouvik.d

be it any version of windows you are using open Explorer and Search the file(hoping you must atleast know the file name). You will have options in search to let u search hidden files too. So you must be able to discover your hidden files. Now if u really want to unhide it right click on it and select properties. Uncheck the Hidden checkbox.

On the other hand if you already know the path then go to Start->run. type cmd. Now navigate to the path your file is there. To confirm you can issue the command dir /a. If it is present there then issue this command attrib -h <hidden_file_name>. Remember you need to give the file name along with the extension.

Though workaround for no use but will work irrespective of which version of windows you are using.

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