How To Remove Shortcut Virus From Pen Drive [5 Ways]

Remove Shortcut Virus From Pen Drive: Do the files or folders in the pen driver start showing up with an aero file after connecting to your PC/Laptop? It is a sign that a shortcut virus has hijacked your pen drive. This situation is annoying; I understand why you can’t access files/folders in your pen drive. But don’t worry.

You can recover your data by Remove the Shortcut Virus From Pen Drive. So, in this article, I have discussed some best solutions to remove shortcut viruses from the pen drive without losing any data. So, follow any of these methods to permanently remove the virus from the pen drive. Before implementing the solution, know what a shortcut virus is and how it works.

What Is A Shortcut Virus?

Shortcut Virus is a malicious program that hides a copy of your original data by turning all your folders and files into shortcut icons.

Shortcuts are similar to virus programs in that they hibernate the threat of auto-run malware on your computer. Doing so helps them to automatically run their malicious file in the background of your system. Finally, all the files on your infected drive will soon become inaccessible, encrypted, and hidden in shortcuts with lnk. Extensions. 

How Does A Shortcut Virus Work? 

You must first know about autorun for a clear understanding of shortcut viruses. When any external device, such as CD, USB, DVD, memory card, SD card, etc., is connected to the PC, Windows introduces a file called AutoRun. Such features of AutoRun are designed to improve the PC experience. Today, malicious programmers have affected this feature of AutoRun. Any virus can be easily connected to this auto-run from a USB flash.

So, it means you are doing two things at the same time: one is installing the virus, and the other is plugging into your USB. And then, after that, the virus will do what it’s programmed to do. Some viruses are designed to add loggers to your PC. Hackers track your keystrokes through their loggers to steal your details like passwords, financial information, etc.

Ways of Shortcut Virus Spread: Shortcut virus infects PCs like memory cards, pen drives, and flash drives, spreads infection in saved files and data, and hides or encrypts them by creating shortcut files.

How Can I Remove Shortcut Virus From Pen Drive Without Erasing My Data?

Here are some best solutions to remove shortcut viruses from pendrive. All solutions are explained in complete steps. So, find your solution by following one of these methods.

Solution 1: Remove Virus From Pen Drive Without Losing Data Using CMD

Using cmd or the command line, you can remove shortcut viruses from pen drives, memory cards, PCs, hard drives, etc. Here, we have explained the solution to remove shortcut viruses from pen drives using CMD in two different ways. But, be careful because improper use of Command Prompt can land you in serious trouble.

Follow the steps below carefully:

• Press the Window + R keys together, and the Run Wizard will automatically open on your system.
• Type cmd in the Run Wizard box and press enter.

• A command prompt will open on your computer. Check if the USB flash drive or pen drive is properly connected to your computer.

• At the command prompt screen, type “E” and press Enter.

Note: Check if the system shows the drive letter after connecting the pen drive. You have to use that drive letter, replacing the E.

• Then, type del*.lnk or del autorun.inf, then hit Enter.
• Type this: attrib -h – r -s /s /d E:\*.* and press enter.
• You must replace “E” again with your affected device driver letter.

Solution 2: Create a BAT File 

Creating a bat file is another easy way to remove a shortcut virus using CMD. For this, you first have to know what a bat file is. A bat file is a simple text file containing a few command lines executed sequentially. These files have the extension .bat or .cmd. When you create such a bat file, you don’t need to type the command every time. Run the bat file to remove the shortcut virus on your PC or any connected device. So, without wasting any time, create a bat file and follow the steps to remove the shortcut virus from your PC or pen drive.

• First, connect your SD card, pen drive, and USB to your system.
• Then, open the Notepad application and copy the following code in it.
• @echo off
• attrib -h -s -r -a /s /d G:*.*
• attrib -h -s -r -a /s /d G:*.*
• attrib -h -s -r -a /s /d G:*.*
• @echo complete
• Note: You must replace the “G” with the affected storage device driver letter.

• With the extension, save the Notepad file.bat and set it down on your workstation.
• To run the file, double-click the generated .bat file and wait for completion.
• There is a 95% chance that the shortcut virus will have been removed from PenDry using CMD. If that doesn’t solve your problem, move on to the next solution.

Solution 3: Use Reliable Anti-Virus Program To Remove Shortcut Virus From Pen Drive

Try an effective malware removal tool if your problem persists after using the above solutions because it will help you remove shortcut viruses from the pen drive without any data loss.

Solution 4: Format Your Pendrive To Remove Shortcut Virus

The last but not the least solution is to format your pen drive, but there are some conditions to do it. It can be done if you have a proper backup of your data. Otherwise, your complete data will be lost while formatting the pen drive. Regardless, Pen drive removes shortcut viruses faster than other formatting methods.

Follow the instructions below to format the pen drive:

• First, connect the virus-infected pen drive to your computer.
• Go to the System menu and then open The PC/My Computer.
• Right-click on the driver assigned here for the affected pen drive.
• From the options list, select the Format option.

• The computer will ask for confirmation to format the pen drive and then click on the Yes option.

Method 5: Delete Suspicious Keys In the Registry Editor

This way, some virus shortcuts will be removed from the registry editor in suspicious cases. Let’s know how to solve it.

• Press the Window + R keys together, open the run box, Type Regedit, and press Enter.

• Right now, the Registry Editor will launch on your computer. After that, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Run.

• Look for suspicious keys in these programs.
• After obtaining it, remove the suspicious keys under WXXKYz, OUzzckky, ZGFYszaas, odwcamszas, etc.

Note: 

Deleting the wrong registry key can put you in serious PC problems, including malfunctioning PC features or system application malfunctioning. Therefore, be careful using any operation in the Registry Editor.

Conclusion:

Now that you know how to Remove Shortcut Virus From Pen Drive from the pen driver, protect your pen driver data from viruses. All my users should habitually keep a backup of their data in one device and several places. Without a proper backup, you won’t have to worry about any virus or corruption problem.

We’re on Facebook, Telegram and Twitter, too! If you want to stay connected with us, be sure to follow us.

We’d love to stay in touch!