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Files and Folders Visible on my Memory Stick USB Drive, but no Files can be Opened

Anonymous
2023-02-04T16:34:30+00:00

I have a USB Drive that I used to store a lot of documents and papers. Most of them are written in Microsoft Word. I didn't use this USB drive in a while and today, I needed one of my documents and plugged the USB drive in.

The first peculiar thing I noticed was that even if I was able to see the full folder structure, all of the files (more that 1000 files in more than 50 folders) were set to hidden. Only the files were hidden, but the folders were not hidden.

I have set files to unhidden (using the attrib command in cmd.exe) and copied the file I wanted to work on on my local drive. When Opening the file, I get the following error:

"Word found unreadable content in 'filename'. Do you want to recover the contents ... ".

I clicked yes, and I got a new popup with:

"Word experienced an error trying to open the file. Try these suggestions.

*check file permissions.

*make sure there is sufficient free memory & disk space'

*open the file with Text Recovery converter."

Moving on, I noticed that all the other word files from the USB drive (more than 1000) were having the same issue. I also have some PDFs and JPGs that also seem not to be readable by anything (I either get wrong format for picture files, or corrupted file for the PDFs).

What I'm mostly interested in are the word files. For these, I tried the following with no success:

  • Open the file in Word with Repair Option on.
  • Disable the Trust Center Protected View
  • Set permissions to the file to Everyone
  • Try to open the files on other computer
  • Try online tools like Recuva and EaseUS. Both of these tools showed an unreadable preview.
  • Open the file in both Word for Office 365 and Word for Windows.
  • Restarting the PC
  • Check the USB Drive for errors.

Nothing worked and I have some files that I really need. The files are not encrypted or anything.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2023-02-04T16:48:47+00:00

USB sticks are of varying quality. They should only be used to move data from one PC to another You should never edit save docs located on the usb, but only on the PC

If you realy need the usb data send the stick to a data recovery specialist eg OnTrack usually they operate a no recovery no fee basis

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  1. Suzanne S Barnhill 277.7K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2023-02-05T13:23:50+00:00

    Aside from the fact that it is always risky to open Word files directly from a removable drive, the files you show are not Word documents but Acrobat files. While some versions of Word can open PDFs, you introduce a further risk when you ask Word to convert a PDF. Have you tried copying these files to your HD and opening them from there? Presumably you would want to use Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the PDFs.

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-02-05T13:58:25+00:00

    Hello, I am Leonielhou, an Independent Advisor and a user like you, I am happy to help clarify any questions you may have.

    It's likely that the files on your USB drive were set to "Hidden" attribute by accident or due to some malware activity on your computer

    Under SETTINGS, click on WINDOWS DEFENDER, then click on OPEN WINDOWS DEFENDER, and select CUSTOM scan (you'll see it listed under Quick and Full), then press SCAN. A pop-up will show the drives available for scanning. Check the boxes next to the USB devices you want scanned. If you have already scanned your internal hard drives, just deselect those boxes so the scanning will go quicker for the external devices.

    https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/how-to-scan-usb-devices-using-windows-defender/435dc018-666c-474e-a9ee-1785651eb033#:~:text=Under%20SETTINGS%2C%20click%20on%20WINDOWS,USB%20devices%20you%20want%20scanned.

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-02-05T08:38:16+00:00

    Thanks a lot for your hints. I have tried 3 different recovery applications with no success. What really bothers me is that the file names and directory structure names are intact and also the used space on the disk seems to be fine. That means that only the content of the file was somehow scrambled (to all the files).

    For example, I have attached a sample of one folder with its contents.

    Also, another peculiar thing was that all the files (but no folders) were set to hidden when I inserted the stick first time after one year or so. How could all the files have been set to hidden (and only the files)?

    Thanks a lot.

    Image

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-02-04T17:16:07+00:00

    Hello Catalin,

    Welcome to the User Community.

    As of now, I will advise that you do a search in the locations where you got these files to see if you can get copies because, in situations like this, it is sad to have to tell you that the chances of you getting those files back are low.

    As the above said, USB disks are not ideal storage devices. I will advise you to consider in the future using Online storage for example OneDrive in the future. A lot of these online storage agents like Microsoft also have free solutions which come in considerable sizes.

    Best Regards Fuad

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