How to Fix the Problem of Folders Turning into Shortcuts

Have you ever encountered the problem where a folder on your computer hard drive, external hard drive, USB or SD card has suddenly turned into a shortcut?

If you encounter folders turning into shortcuts when opening a USB or hard drive partition in Windows Explorer, and your saved files become inaccessible, your device is infected with the Shortcut virus.

Overview of Shortcut Virus Infection

The Shortcut virus is the culprit. Once your device is connected to it, the malware infiltrates your computer, USB flash drive, memory card, or any other removable storage device. It then immediately creates shortcuts with the same name as actual folders, hiding the real folders and files.

You cannot open shortcut folders or access your saved files. What is worse, the virus demands a ransom to decrypt them.

If you've suddenly found that your folders have turned into shortcuts, don't panic! It's not the end of the world, and many users who've had this experience have found solutions. In this article, we'll teach you how to fix shortcut folders without losing any data in two steps.

Phrase 1. Remove Shortcut Virus [3 Ways]

There are three methods that can be applied to recover encrypted folders from shortcuts. You can try any of the methods provided here to easily convert shortcut files back to their original state.

Method 1: Remove the Shortcut Virus with Antivirus Software

Yes, the most effective and simplest way to remove shortcut virus is by using an antivirus.

Here are some highly rated antivirus programs that can remove viruses from your computer and storage devices:

• Shortcut Virus Remover
• Shortcut Virus Fixer
• USBFix
• Hitman Pro

You can also search online for reliable software to remove the virus from your device.

Method 2: Run the attrib command

When you inquire about how to fix the issue of folders turning into shortcuts, many experienced users would suggest using the CMD command prompt as a solution. In most cases, it can indeed remove shortcut viruses and restore your data.

Step 1:  Create a Notepad file on your computer's desktop.

Step 2: Copy the contents into Notepad and save the file.

This text is a command-line code snippet in English, used to modify file attributes and delete files. Here's the translation into Chinese:
• attrib -r -a -s -h /s /d
  Remove the read-only, archive, system, and hidden attributes for all files and subdirectories
  del /f /s /q *.inf
  Forcefully delete all .inf files in subdirectories without prompting for confirmation
  MKDIR autorun.inf\Kill........
  Create a directory named 'autorun.inf' with a subdirectory 'Kill........'
  attrib +r +a +s +h *.inf /s /d
This code appears to be dealing with some auto-run settings in a Windows system, including deleting certain .inf files, creating a specific directory structure, and setting other .inf files as read-only, archive, system, and hidden.

Step 3: Close the Notepad file, and then rename it “UPAN.cmd” (with “.cmd” as the file extension).

Copy the file to the device where you have the shortcut to your folder.

Step 4: Double-click the .cmd file and run it. Wait for the process to complete.

After that, the shortcut should be removed, and you should be able to access your folder and saved files again.

Method 3: Show Hidden Files

By changing the settings in File Explorer, you can reveal the files and folders hidden by the shortcut virus:

Option 1: Show Hidden Files and Folders in File Explorer

Step 1: Connect the device with the shortcut to your computer.

2. Open File Explorer, and then open the USB drive or hard disk partition that has the shortcut.

Step 3: Click the View tab and uncheck the box next to “Hidden items.”

Option 2: Show Hidden Files Using the Windows Control Panel

Please provide the English content you want translated, and I'll do my best to translate it into Chinese.

Step 1: Open the Windows Control Panel, locate and right-click on "File Explorer Options," then select "Open."

Under “View,” select “Show hidden files, folders and drives” under “Hidden files and folders.”

: Click OK to confirm.

After that, you'll be able to view all hidden files and folders on the device.

Phrase 2: Recover data after deleting shortcut

After you remove the shortcut from the device, you can open the folder to verify that your data has been safely saved.

If the data is still inaccessible, or you don't see any of your saved files, don't worry. Keep reading to learn how to restore lost data after removing the Shortcut Virus.

First of all, download a professional data recovery software.

Data Recovery Wizard is a popular tool that lets you thoroughly scan and recover files that have been lost due to deletion, formatting, or even a virus attack.

It also helps you recover files that are hidden or deleted by shortcut virus.

Next, perform a full data recovery.

With the Data Recovery Wizard tool, you can recover data from the device after deleting shortcut folders in just 3 steps:

Step 1: Select a drive and start scanning

Launch Disk Drill and hover over the partition where you lost data. It may be an internal hard drive, an external disk, a USB flash drive, or an SD card. Then, click “Scan.”

Step 2: Preview and select the files found by the scan

Use the file type filter on the left or in the top-right corner to narrow down the scan results until you find the needed file. Then, you can click the "Preview" button or double-click the file to preview its content (if available).

Step 3: Recover the lost data to a secure location

Check the box next to the files you wish to recover, then click “Recover” to restore your lost data to a secure location. We recommend that you do not save recovered data to the same disk from which it was lost.