Files Folders on USB Became Shortcut after Virus - 3 Fixings

Folders and files became shortcut

Hey guys, is there any usb shortcut virus remover to remove shortcut virus from pendrive permanently? What's killing me, the files on the usb drive not only the files, but also the folders all became shortcut all of sudden due to unknown virus attack. The files are all shortcuts and not opening, what kind of shortcut monster could do such weird job to all my documents? I am wondering whether it is possible to remove shortcut virus from pendrive without losing data.

Why files became shortcut

When flash drive has been infected with virus, some shortcut virus namely 1kb shortcut virus, all files and folders would show the shortcut and when you double clicking the shortcut, the virus that was hidden as a file .vbs would start to run.

The files and folders that became shortcut were hidden by the virus. Here are the steps that we would recommend for a quick shortcut virus recovery.

Solution#1 - Scan usb with antivirus software which would help delete unwanted files created by the virus and remove the virus

  1. Delete the .vbs file and run the antivirus software to make sure all virus have been deleted.

Solution#2 - Video How to remove shortcut virus wscript.exe virus

If there is no .vbs file, sometimes the virus is hidden as a name wscript.exe that you need stop and remove (Will show you the steps in the coming up video)

Step 2 - Video Remove Shortcut Virus from usb using cmd

Please Note: attrib -h -s x:*.* /S /D is the cmd that you need to use to make all files

Solution#3 - Format USB if Two Solutions Did Not Work

Notice: all files will be removed if you format the usb drive, we strongly recommend recover data from usb before the formatting.

recommendRecommend: 6 freeware for usb drive recovery

There are many free usb formatters available, you may try HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool, Rufus, Partition Resizer Free etc.

Rufus download url: https://github.com/pbatard/rufus/releases/download/v3.11/rufus-3.11.exe

format with rufusRufus to format usb

recommendRecommend: 8 free usb formatter download

Last updated on Nov 28, 2023

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