Windows 7 secondary drive data still present, but file tree doesn't display

Question

After recovering my system from a malware attack, I restored all of my previous settings, run malware/virus scans, etc. Everything appears to be back to normal, except:

E:\ directory tree does not display contents, though data is present when the disk properties are examined. I was able to recover most of the data in the tree using recuva, though not all of it.

If I run a microsoft security essentials scan on the E: drive all of the old files and data and it's file tree are visible and scannable. And when I try to copy the recovered data back to it's original location, windows tells me that all the data already exists in that location and asks if I would like to replace it.

This is very confusing because it seems that windows is aware of and able to view all of the data on the hard drive, but it does not show the presence of any files in the explorer.

Is there anything that can be done to restore the file tree?

Answer 1

To add on to Matt's answer, you can run the following in the command line to restore file attributes:

e:

attrib –s –h *.* /S /D

Answer 2

The malware set the file attributes on the drive to hidden and protected/system. The solution should be as simple as setting Windows Explorer to show hidden and protected files.