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slashmanFlag for United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

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How to recover LOST files after Using "hide folder" softwares..

I used a program called Folder Lock that hides files that I put into a folder.  In order to get access to the files, I would have to start the program and enter my password to see the files.  The files are hidden and no one would not be able to see it existed using windows explorer or even dos I believe unless they enter the program and type in the password.  However, today after installing another software and then a few hours later, accessing that "folder lock" program, I could not find the files that I "hid" in that folder.  I have tried uninstalling that program I just installed and also tried restoring windows to a few days ago and that also didn't get the "hidden" files to show.

Now, I uninstalled the "Folder Lock" program.  When that program is uninstalled, the "hidden folder" show appear again.  The folder that I "hid" did appear but I cannot see the files inside it at all.  When I check the size of that folder, it does show the size of the files that I have hid but I could not see the files.  If the folder is empty, the size of the folder should read 0.  But the size of the folder shows me that the files I "hid" are still there but I just cannot see them.  I have tried installing that "folder Lock" program in the exact same place but I still cannot get the files to appear.  

Are there any ways for me to get the files to show up??  I went into dos and also can't see the files.  I don't know what else I can do.  The files are definitely still in that folder but I don't know how to make it show up.  Thanks in advance!
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r-k

The web page for that software claims that they have "unbelievable customer support", so you might consider calling/writing to see if they meant it.

Failing that, see if you can locate the hidden files with RootkitRevealer:

 http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/RootkitRevealer.html

If the RKR scan does show your files then post the first few lines of the scan results here, it might offer a clue about how to get the files back.
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ASKER

hi r-k,

I did contact them and they did copy and pasted some things I could try but it still doesn't work yet.  

However, there is something extra that I tried after that.  And that was to hide that "Locker" folder using the Hidden function in Windows Explorer.  There is a folder inside that "Locker" folder that is called Winter.  And when I use the hidden function in Windows Explorer, while it is being hidden, I can see C:\Program Files\FL\(Scrambled Symbols)\Winter on my screen while it is being hidden.  It seems that words are scrambled in the path so that's why Windows cannot show the files.

Does this help any in solving the problem before I try RootkitRevealer?  Thanks
Try to login windows in safe mode.
I tried in safe mode but still can't see my files in that folder.  

I also tried copying and pasting the entire folder to another drive and while it is copying, I can see all the file names being copied.  However, after it is finished copying, the files are still hidden in the folder in the new drive.  Any more ideas???  Thanks
Any luck with RootkitRevealer?

Your findings so far make it unlikely that RootkitRevealer will be much help in getiing the files back, though it will probably show them, and there is always a chance.
RootkitReavealer didn't work.

However, they told me to use a software called PCI File Recovery and it did recover some of the files finally!  I guess that's better than nothing.  

Thanks for your replies.
I guess if you did not physically delete those files, you will be able to find them eventually, try some powerful recovery software, I remembered the EasyRecovery Professional is very powerful, I tried it some times saving me a lot of lost files.

Hope this helps.
Avatar of Tolomir
Copy these files to a FAT partition, e.g. USB memory stick, this should "unhide" you files, since FAT cannot handle such mascarading stuff.

Tolomir
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Computer101
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