Comments on: “Show hidden files..” doesn’t work?

By: Pjb0222

Pjb0222 — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 20:14:10 +0000

Many viruses for Windows take advantage of a feature of NTFS called file streams. File streams are not visible in Widows Explorer. They are visible from the command prompt using the DIR command as mentioned Chippy088.

As to removing the files in question, I suggest searching for manual cleaning instructions or see if someone has a stand-alone cleanup utility.

Most likely, you will need to reboot to safe mode to delete the files.

By: Chippy088

Chippy088 — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 21:22:43 +0000

ScorpyHany’s method will not work, because you obviously can’t see them in explorer, (same as options to show all files.)

Try this command from the dos command line.

Dir /a: h

That shows any hidden files in the current directory. Do that in the root directory and it will show hidden files and folders.

Use

Dir /a: h >> hidden.txt

To save them to a file which you can print out and manually delete any suspect files.

As you know the virus name and type, search the internet for an antivirus, and use that. It should do most of the work for you.

By: HCream

HCream — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 23:47:33 +0000

Remove the hard drive from the laptop and connect it to another computer as a slave drive(internal) or as an USB drive(external).

Do a full scan on the infected drive. Be sure “autorun” is not enable on the good computer and so is the Windows Recovery. You may need administrator privilege to access the drive if it’s in NTFS format.

Once the drive is disinfected and clear from bugs, reconnect it back to the laptop. You probably have to do a manual cleanup of the Windows registry to get rid of all references to the bug.