Windows 7: External Hard Drive error ~$WV.FAT32

Simple, Flippylumpy

Just rightclick on the unallocated space, click on New Simple Volume and format your drive with the wizard that kicks in. (assign drive letter, file system, Volume label etc., and quick format.) I think that should go through without any problems.



(yep, I was just experimenting and had an unallocated pendrive and sure I had used LLF Tool to lowlevel format, Partition Wizard to make it unallocated and trying all sorts of things. )

Thanks to cottonball for cleansing your PC and making this possible.

Any time jumanji, glad to help.

If any time in the future you get someone with malware, just let me know, and will do my best.

Regards...

woah, Thank you so much guys! I appreciate the time you spend here to discuss and solve me problem, It was really informative. Ohmm, one more thing, how do I revert the Unhide.exe effect?

I haven't used unhide.exe anytime and so I wouldn't know what effect you are mentioning.

If you mention in detail what exactly is the "effect" that you may want to undo, perhaps some solution may be forthcoming. Let us see whether cottonball has something to say on it.

Here we go...

To hide the files in Windows, reverse the steps that follow:

Close all programs so that you are at the Desktop.

Go to Start > Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization > Folder Options

In Folder Opgtions > View tab:
Uncheck: Show Hidden Files or Folders
Under the Hidden files and folders section uncheck: Show hidden files, folders, or drives
Check: Hide extensions for known file types
Remove the check from: Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)

Press: Apply > OK

For other files not governed by Windows Folder Options, manually hide
them by right-clicking on the file, selecting Properties, and checking the Attributes box
next to Hidden.

That works, now I can use all the stuffs I learned here if it happens again. Thanks again guys, specially for Jumanji who helped me from the very start.

Glad to see the solved tick mark on this thread. While I do rightly take pride in what I had done on this thread, a major part, that of cleansing your PC of all malware, was carried out by mate cottonball, the Malware Buster.

I had no doubt whatsoever that once your PC was clean, your external hard disk can be fixed. I also knew that it could have easily been done on another clean PC but the need of the hour was cleansing your PC and that is why I diverted you to the System Security sub-forum.

As Slartybart rightly said (" Soon enough FlippyLumpy will be an expert" ) in his post #35, you are one now , thanks to SevenForums.

I also appreciate your perseverance and following the instructions to the dot throughout this thread.

Have a good night.

@Flippy lumpy

Rightly so. jumanji is very knowledgeable, and a true expert.



@jumanji,
Malware Buster??

I like to destroy malware like a heat seeking missile!

...as long as the missile does not turn around and hit me in the...rear!!!

Hello sir. I am having the same problem with my USB Flash Drive. I did all as directed by jumanji in post#11. Now WinRAR shows the drive empty. Windows Explorer also shows "This folder is empty". Although it shows 3.73 as total size and 3.63 free. This hints me that my data is still there on the flash drive.

Attached is the result of DIR/A:H in CMD. It shows a DIR without any name.

Shut down your computer completely after safely removing your pen drive.

Reboot and plug in your pen drive.

Run WinRAR and explore the contents of your pen drive and post a screenshot of it.

Afterwards, close WinRAR ( do not plug out the pen drive) and take a screenshot of Windows Disk Management. Let us see how the pen drive shows up in Disk Management. Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image

I shall be back here after another six hours and then examine it. So you have all the time in the world.

( I only hope that you have not deleted all the files in WinRAR. You should have examined the contents of each and every folder and deleted only what obviously are not your data files/folders. Let us see.)