USB Stick not displaying files and folders

funkey_monkey

Got a USB stick here that in Windows Explorer lists its contents as two 1kB files. However, properties shows that 17.8GB is used and 11.3GB is unused.

I've tried a few things to get the artefacts to display:

• Safely ejected the hardware
• Confirmed the 'Show Hidden files, folders and drives' has been checked
• Tried chkdsk (fails) - states that errors have been found and were problems attempting to repair
• Uninstalled the USB drivers
• Malware check

Chkdsk reports through Event Viewer - which seems to indicate no problem:

Chkdsk was executed in read/write mode.  

Checking file system on D:

Volume label is USB2.

Stage 1: Examining basic file system structure ...

 1024 file records processed.                             File verification completed.

 Phase duration (File record verification): 154.54 milliseconds.

 0 large file records processed.                   Phase duration (Orphan file record recovery): 6.09 milliseconds.

 0 bad file records processed.                    Phase duration (Bad file record checking): 4.69 milliseconds.

Stage 2: Examining file name linkage ...

 253 reparse records processed.                     1134 index entries processed.                            Index verification completed.

 Phase duration (Index verification): 865.83 milliseconds.

 Phase duration (Orphan reconnection): 11.35 milliseconds.

 Phase duration (Orphan recovery to lost and found): 18.86 milliseconds.

 253 reparse records processed.                    Phase duration (Reparse point and Object ID verification): 14.55 milliseconds.

Stage 3: Examining security descriptors ...

Cleaning up 1 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.

Cleaning up 1 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.

Cleaning up 1 unused security descriptors.

Security descriptor verification completed.

 Phase duration (Security descriptor verification): 37.23 milliseconds.

 56 data files processed.                       Phase duration (Data attribute verification): 5.28 milliseconds.

CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...

 528 USN bytes processed.                              Usn Journal verification completed.

 Phase duration (USN journal verification): 16.93 milliseconds.

Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems.

No further action is required.

 60393535 KB total disk space.

  3440556 KB in 799 files.

    560 KB in 57 indexes.

   69327 KB in use by the system.

   65536 KB occupied by the log file.

 56883092 KB available on disk.

   4096 bytes in each allocation unit.

 15098383 total allocation units on disk.

 14220773 allocation units available on disk.

Total duration: 2.57 seconds (2578 ms).

Any ideas what to try here. Internet searches are showing nothing but junk and ads to download dodgy software.

funkey_monkey

Anyone?

Flinty997

Could be hidden encryption.

Or files that have been marked for deletion not actually deleted yet.

funkey_monkey

Owner has been able to view some of them using a trial of an app called Recoverit I had suggested that they try to open on the original PC where they obtained the data in case it unlocks something - or encryption as you say.

Although if it was encryption would Recoverit be able to open the files?

Flinty997

Recover the file not open it. I was wondering is the user the original owner of the drive. You can create hidden files on a encrypted drive. You only see them in the sizes of the drive are off.

If its nothing like that. Then You can have weird permission issues swapping USB drives on Windows. The original PC has ownership and the 2nd PC doesn't. Flash Drives are not as robust, as SSD for example. They can fail fairly often.

If recovery software has some success. It might point to corruption of the drive.