First, let's figure out what the invisible folders are for. Hidden directories are mainly used to hide information from users. You can independently make them invisible or, conversely, restore hidden folders, i.e. make them visible again. There are several ways to do this. However, there are frequent cases of hiding directories without any user actions, let's talk about such situations.
Where do invisible folders come from?
The appearance of hidden directories can be associated with the actions of both the user and viruses or the system itself. But in order to generally understand if there are invisible folders (and also to determine where the existing ones suddenly disappeared), you must first enable their display in Explorer. To do this, go to the "Folder Options ..." section, which is located in the "Tools" menu at the top of the Windows
Explorer window
. If you do not see this menu, then press the Alt key. Going to the folder properties, you need to open the “View” tab and find the item “Hidden files and folders” in the list below. It remains only a little lower to move the checkmark to "Show hidden files and folders." However, system directories will still remain invisible. In order to display them, you must uncheck the box in the same list with the option “Hide protected system files”. Be sure to complete the last action. This is due to the fact that in most cases viruses hide files and folders, making them systemic.
So in your explorer all invisible folders will be displayed. This applies to those directories that were hidden by users, and those that hid viruses.
Making invisible folders visible again
Very often viruses infect files and folders stored on USB flash drives. They hide the original directories, creating their own with exactly the same
names. And during the opening of the folder, a virus program starts, which then settles in the computer. And if invisible folders are not displayed on the PC to which the USB flash drive will be connected, then the virus will definitely penetrate the system. After all, the user himself will be to blame. In order to prevent this and save the necessary information, it is necessary to restore folders.
To do this, remove the “Hidden” attribute from the directory. Click with the mouse (right button) on the desired folder and select "Properties" in the menu that opens. A small window will open, from the bottom of which you need to uncheck the box next to the word "Hidden".
However, this does not always work if the virus did a very good job. To solve the problem and open invisible folders, you can use the command line. To do this, press the "Win" and "R" keys simultaneously. A window will open where you need to enter “CMD” and press “Enter” or the “OK” button. This will open the command line.
Further the procedure will be more complicated. First, enter in the window “cd - space - the letter of the local drive, where the folders (C, D, F, etc.) - the colon” are located, press Enter. If the directories are located in the root of the disk, then the following should be entered on the command line for each folder: "attrib - space - folder name - space - -R - space - -S - space - -H", press Enter. Pay attention to the “-” sign in front of the letters, you need to write it too. So we will remove the attributes “Read-only”, “System” and “Hidden” from the folder or file. And if the directories are nested within each other, then you must first enter the one that contains the destination. To do this, use "cd - space - folder name" until we find ourselves inside the desired one, only then remove the attributes. There are also many programs that make life easier in this matter. One of them is Total Commander. It is also worth mentioning that if you perform all the operations on the contrary, then the folders can be hidden from prying eyes (in the “attrib” command you can put the “+” sign instead of the “-” sign - this is how we hide the folders and make them systemic, and read only) .