How to remove shortcut virus from your pen drive

The pen drives are the most common tools of storage for portable data. They are small and convenient to carry. All our files and folders that need to be accessed on multiple computer systems are stored and run through pen drives. There are times when our files and folders stored on the pen drive are shown as shortcuts. This happens not only with pen drives but hard disks, memory sticks and phone memories. Whenever we try to access these files the windows show an error saying “shortcut missing”. This may instill a fear of losing data and sometimes we are in a hurry to format our pen drive. What it is actually is that the files and folder become hidden to us and instead a shortcut icon appears which actually doesn’t exist. Formatting the pen drive is not necessary since it is a type of virus which may harm your computer and your files and also folders. There are a few simple methods to delete these shortcuts and recover your data. These steps do not require the use of any anti-virus.

One of the methods which you can follow:

Firstly, plug in your virus infected pen drive in the USB port of your computer or laptop and press ‘Windows’ key plus the ‘R’ key (Another option is to click on the ‘Start’ menu using the mouse and select the Run option). This will open the run box in which you need to type in the word ‘c m d’ (without spaces and single quotes) and press ‘Enter’. This opens a command prompt in which you need to open your drive by typing in a certain command. Now, for example, if your drive letter is ‘g:’ (without single quotes), then you need to type ‘attrib -h -r -s /s /d g:\*.*’.

Note: make sure there is space between each element of this code. After typing in your drive letter press ‘Enter’. The drive letter can be known by opening ‘My Computer’ and checking the pen drive icon. After this wait a few seconds and then open and check your drive, your folders. Your folders will have recovered by now and you can easily access them.

Use of an antivirus to solve your problem:

Apart from this trick, you can also install a good anti-virus which can help you get rid of all the viruses that it detects. The anti-virus in the system can be used to scan the pen drive when it is inserted into the USB port of the computer or laptop and connected. The anti-virus software scans the pen drive for viruses and repairs or removes them and may also offer solutions in the form of extra tools that can be downloaded to remove any special kinds of virus that is irreparable or irremovable from your laptop or computer.

All in all it is very easy to get rid of the virus that threatens to harm your precious data (or your files and folders) stored in your pen drive by simply removing this virus with these easy steps.