A Pen drive or USB drive is the most commonly used external storage device. And this is the reason why these drives are most affected by viruses. One of the common viruses found in USBs is the one that creates shortcut files.
What is a Shortcut Virus?
As the name indicates, a shortcut virus is a program that creates a shortcut of a particular file or folder and hides the original file present in the storage drive. This virus mainly affects external storage devices such as SD cards, USB drives, and other storage drives.
Shortcut files are mainly created by Autorun.inf worms and Viruses or Trojans.
Types of Shortcut Virus:
1) Flash drive shortcut virus: It is a Trojan virus that enters the drive and hides. The virus then wraps all the folders and files in a shortcut that looks exactly like the drive. If the drive is clicked the virus will replicate it and eventually occupy all the storage space. This virus is capable of multiplying itself every time the folder or the file is opened.
2) Folders and file shortcut virus: The folder and file shortcut virus affects the Pen drive by hiding all the files and folders in it and creating a shortcut for the folders and files. The files and folder can only be accessed by clicking the shortcut virus; this action will initiate the duplication of the files and folders.
When do Files turn into Shortcuts?
- The antivirus in the computer might have not recognized the Trojan virus because it was not updated.
- Downloading content from a non-trusted source on the internet can bring a virus into the computer.
- If a virus-affected Pen drive is used in a computer without scanning for any potential virus, the virus would enter the USB drive from the PC.
These viruses hide all the files and folders present in the drive and create a shortcut. These shortcuts keep appearing even after you delete them or you format the drive. And, formatting a drive will not assure you complete security over the virus. Therefore, you would risk losing important data if you rely solely on formatting.
To get back the original files, you have to fix the problem and recover files from a USB-turned shortcut using proficient USB data recovery software.
Note: The shortcut virus doesn’t give any option but makes the file inaccessible but when you click files in them or once the file is opened it multiplies itself and eventually occupies the entire drive until it is full.
How To Recover Shortcut Files and Data From USB?
The shortcut virus keeps appearing even after deleting it many times. You might have also used antivirus to get rid of the shortcut virus.
Unfortunately, antivirus tools are unable to recover the lost or deleted files. In such cases, you need to use specialized Data recovery tools like SFWare Data Recovery Software to retrieve the lost data.
Click on the download button to download the SFWare USB Data Recovery Software and start recovering data that has been lost because of the shortcut virus.
Download SFWare USB recovery software and Launch the application. Connect your pen drive or USB drive to the computer.
1: Select the Recover files option from the main screen.
2: From the next screen, select the drive from which you need to retrieve your files.
3: After the completion of the scanning process, you can view files in either Data View or File Type View.
4: Right-click on the file to preview the recovered and then save the file in any desired location on your PC.
How To Fix A Folder That Has Become A Shortcut?
Before deleting the shortcut virus it is important to fix the virus from the file, follow the below given steps:
Method 1: Show Hidden Files to Recover Files Hidden by Shortcut Virus
Sometimes viruses may turn your files into hidden states. Therefore you need to unhide the files to make them visible.
- Insert your USB or Pen drive, go to My Computers
- Click the View Tab and Check Mark Show Hidden Items option
Or you can unhide the files or folders using the command line.
- Right-click on Start and select Command Prompt run as administrator.
- Now type F: ( Where F is the drive letter)
- Now, type the following attrib -h -r -s /s /d F:\*. * (Replace F with the drive letter where you would like to show hidden files).
By doing this you will be able to unhide the hidden shortcut files. Now, go to the USB drive and verify whether all the hidden files are shown. If you can’t still find the files, try the best recovery method shown in the next section.
Method 2: Delete the Shortcut Files
Once hidden files are shown in the pen drive, delete the shortcut files using the command prompt.
- Go to Start → Click on Run → Type cmd
- Select your device by typing the assigned drive letter followed by a colon for Example- e: ( Where I is the drive letter)
- Next, Type del *.lnk
- Type attrib -h -r -s /s /d e:*.*
- Hit Enter
Now, check whether your drive is free from shortcut files. if you can’t find your files in the drive, recover your files from a USB drive or pen drive showing shortcuts using the method mentioned earlier.
Pro Tips to Keep Your Files Safe
A virus can affect the computer and storage devices in many ways. These viruses can corrupt the Pen drive or permanently delete the data present in them. Once affected by the virus it becomes quite tricky to recover shortcut files from Pen drive. To avoid such situations in the future here are a few preventive measures to be followed.
- Always download files and applications from a trusted source
- Make sure you use antivirus in the computer and keep the antivirus updated
- Scan the Pen drive for antivirus before using it.
- Never use the Pen drive in computers that have a high chance of being infected with viruses.
Frequently Asked Questions:
How can I get shortcut data from a pen drive?
To get your data from the shortcut folder in the pen drive, you first need to remove the shortcut virus from the drive. With the help of methods explained in the article, you will be able to fix the problem.
How can I remove the shortcut virus from my USB?
You will be able to remove the shortcut virus using the attrib command and delete the shortcut files from the pen drive.
Why do my pen drive files become shortcuts?
Shortcut files are the files created by Autorun.inf worms and Viruses or Trojans. When your files are affected by the virus, it creates shortcuts to the folder saved on the drive with 0 kb data.
How do I delete a shortcut folder?
With the help of commands in the command prompt, you can delete the shortcut files from the pen drive. When you try to delete shortcut files using the normal delete command, it reappears, therefore, make use of commands to delete the shortcut virus in the pen drive.
