Remove Shortcut Virus from USB, Pen Drive, SD Card, Hard Disk

This page includes solutions to completely remove Shortcut virus from USB, flash drive, external hard disk and computer without losing data.

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What is a Shortcut Virus?

The Shortcut Virus, also known as the 1KB Shortcut Virus, is a common Trojan virus that spreads extensively through USB drives and flash disks. This virus hides all folders in the root directory of a USB drive and creates shortcuts with the same names as these folders. These shortcut files typically have file extensions such as .EXE, .VBS, .LNK, or .INI, making them difficult to remove. When users click on these shortcuts, the virus executes and automatically adds itself to the startup items.

How does the “Shortcut Virus” spread?

The “Shortcut Virus” is more of a Trojan program that behaves like an autorun .inf worm, running in the background. As a result, existing files on infected devices become inaccessible, hidden, or encrypted as shortcuts with the .lnk extension.

This is how the shortcut virus is said to work, according to many bloggers and geeks:

Infected devices: personal computers, laptops, USBs, flash drives, SD cards, external hard drives, cameras, and mobile phones, etc.

Transmission: The shortcut virus worm infects computers > infects USBs, flash drives (external hard disks) > infects saved files and data (hides or encrypts files, creates shortcuts).

Shortcut Virus Spread Pattern:

So, how to remove shortcut virus from USB or flash drive and recover all lost files? Read on, you will find 5 solutions here: using cmd, .bat file, shortcut virus remover, cleaning shortcut virus from PC, and deleting suspicious keys in Registry Editor.

The USB shortcut virus removal solutions provided in this tutorial have been sourced mainly from professional editors of geek websites such as makeuseof.com and bloggers on technical forums such as quora.com. All the fixes have been tested and proven to work. Hopefully, these tips will truly solve your problem.

Method 1: Remove Shortcut Virus using CMD

One of the preferred methods to remove Shortcut virus from a flash drive or USB flash disk is by using the attrib command.

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Here are the detailed steps:

Step 1. Connect the external hard drive to your computer, and right-click the Start button. Choose “Search.”

Step 2. Type Command Prompt in the search box, and then click on “Command Prompt” to open it.

If prompted, log in with the administrator account and password.

Step 3: Type E: and press [Enter]. (Replace E: with the letter of your USB drive or diskette.)

Step 4: Type del *.lnk or del autorun.inf, and then press Enter.

Step 5: Type attrib -h -r -s /s /d E:\*.* and press Enter. (Replace E: with the letter of the infected drive.)

Note: If it does not work, it is likely that another virus is at play. Try replacing autorun.inf with other suspicious file extensions such as *.exe to delete these possible viruses.

Method 2: Create a BAT File to Remove Shortcut Virus from USB

By creating a BAT file, you can simply run it and follow these steps to clean and remove existing shortcut viruses:

Step 1: Plug in your USB flash drive, pen drive, or SD card to your computer and create a new Notepad file on your desktop.

Step 2: Copy the following code and save it in a new Notepad file:

Note: Replace G: with the letter of your infected storage device.

Step 3: Change the text file's extension to .bat, and save it on your desktop.

Step 4: Double-click the .bat file on your desktop and wait for the process to complete.

By now, you should have successfully removed the shortcut virus from your USB flash drive, pen drive, or SD card using the Command Prompt.

Method 3: Using an Antivirus - USB Shortcut Virus Remover Tool

When you search for shortcut virus removal tools or software online, your browser displays a host of search results.

Below are the most recommended tools to help you remove shortcut viruses from your USB, SD card, or other storage devices:

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TOTALAV

TotalAV is an award-winning antivirus and security software that provides real-time protection against viruses, malware, and online threats.

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You can download an antivirus tool like TotalAV to remove and clean viruses from your storage device.

Method 4: Remove the Shortcut Virus from the Source Computer

As you've learned from the previous sections, most viruses spread from computer to storage devices. To completely get rid of the Shortcut Virus, we highly recommend that you follow the guides here to first eliminate the existing Shortcut Virus on the source computer.

Stop using USB drives, pen drives, SD cards, memory cards, or hard disks on your computer.

That is because, once a device is infected, using it further will spread the virus to more devices and lead to more lost files.

As such, you should stop using an infected device and disconnect all external storage devices.

2. Remove any existing Shortcut Virus or malware from your computer

As you know, viruses on external drives can be traced to your computer. So it is important to cut off the source.

Here are some tips you can follow to remove the shortcut virus from your Windows 10 PC. (The steps may vary slightly for other versions of Windows.)

Step 1: Enable the Firewall on Your Windows PC

Open the Control Panel, click on “Windows Defender Firewall” and then click Turn Windows Defender Firewall on or off.

Check the “Turn on Windows Defender Firewall” box, and then click “OK” to confirm.

Step 2. Open Virus & threat protection in the Windows Security app.

Click the Windows logo, then click “Settings” > “Update & Security.” Under the “Windows Security” section, click “Open Windows Defender Security Center.”

In the new window, click on Virus & threat protection > Manage settings for Virus & threat protection. Enable the three options: Real-time protection, Cloud-delivered protection, and Automatic sample submission.

Note: If a virus is detected after you turn on Virus & threat protection, follow the instructions in the Windows Security app to remove all viruses and malware that it finds.

Step 3: Run an antivirus program to eliminate any hidden viruses, malware, and so on.

After that, you can proceed to the solutions from the next part to permanently remove the Shortcut Virus from a USB, flash drive, SD card, or memory card.

Method 5: Remove the USB/Flash Drive Shortcut Virus by editing the Registry

Well, this is more like a method to get rid of suspicious registry entries that might be related to the Shortcuts virus from your computer.

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Step 1: Press the Windows + R keys, type regedit, and press Enter.

Step 2. Open the Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Run.

Step 3: Look for suspicious keys like “odwcamszas,” “WXXKYz,” “ZGFYszaas,” and “OUzzckky,” and delete them.

Delete the registry keys to remove the Shortcut Virus.

Additional Tip: Recover Data after Removing Shortcut Virus [Important]

Some of you might have noticed that using the CMD shortcut virus remover might result in slight data loss. If you encounter more issues after removing the shortcut virus, we recommend checking your device for any missing files.

If you're missing some important files, don't worry. You can use the Data Recovery Wizard tool to scan your device and find deleted files. This reliable data recovery software can restore deleted files from Recycle Bin or recover data from virus/malware attacks, accidental deletion, hard drive formatting/damage, and lost partitions.

Watch our video tutorial on how to recover data:

 

Once the scan is over, you can preview all recoverable files and restore them with just a few clicks:

Step 1: Select the drive infected with virus to scan

Run an antivirus file recovery software on your Windows computer. Select the virus-infected disk to scan for lost or hidden files. Note that:

• If the files were hidden or deleted by a virus from a hard drive, it's best to install the software on another partition or external USB drive to avoid overwriting data. • If the infected device is an external hard drive, flash drive, or memory card, it's fine to install the software on the local disk of your computer.

Select the location to scan

Step 2: Check all scan results

The Data Recovery Wizard will immediately start scanning the virus-infected hard drive to find your deleted or hidden files. To quickly locate the needed files, you can use the "Filter" or "Group by Type" feature to display only images, videos, documents, emails, and so on.

Step 3: Preview and recover the deleted/hidden files

Once the scan is finished, you can preview the scanned files. Select the ones you need and click on the “Recover” button. You should save the recovered files to a different secure location on your computer or storage device, not the original spot where the files were lost.

How to Prevent USB, Flash Drive, or Computer Infection by Shortcut Virus

As they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Make sure that you are well-protected to avoid getting infected by Quick heal virus or any other virus for that matter.

• Regularly scan and remove viruses from USBs, flash drives, SD cards, external hard drives, PCs, or laptops.
• Make sure your antivirus software and firewall are up to date.
• Always scan removable disks before opening them.
• Backing up important data on another storage device can also prevent catastrophic loss.

In short

In summary, this page offers you a complete solution to thoroughly clean and remove shortcut virus from USB, flash drive, external hard drive, and PC. CMD, BAT file, deleting registry keys, and anti-virus software are all effective ways to fix the shortcut virus issue.

Moreover, we still introduce an automated file recovery software like Data Recovery Wizard tool to assist you in retrieving all your files lost due to virus removal.

"Frequently Asked Questions about 'Shortcut Virus Remover CMD'"

If you have any other questions about the Shortcut Virus Remover, you can find the solution here.

How do I remove shortcut virus from my flash drive?

USB Flash Drive Shortcut Virus Removal using CMD:

Step 1: Press ⊞ Win + R to open the "Run" dialog. Type cmd, then press ↵ Enter.

Step 2: Type the letter of your USB flash drive, such as G:, and press Enter.

Step 3: Type ATTRIB -H -R -S AUTOPLAY.

Step 4: Type DEL AUTO RUN.

How can I safely remove the Shortcut Virus from a USB without losing data?

Run Command Prompt as an administrator. Type in ATTRIB -H -R -S AUTOPLAY.INF to remove the shortcut virus from your USB device without losing any data.

How do I remove the shortcut virus from an external hard drive?

Open the Command Prompt, navigate to the infected drive, and type in the command del *.lnk, then hit Enter to delete all shortcuts on the external hard drive. Next, input the command attrib -s -r -h /s /d * to restore hidden files that were concealed by the shortcut virus.

How to remove viruses using CMD?

Step 1. Search for “CMD.” Right-click “Command Prompt,” and select “Run as administrator.”

Step 2: Type E: and press Enter. (E: is the drive letter for the CD-ROM.)

Step 3: Type in the commands “attrib -s -h -r -a /s /d *” and “del autorun.inf” one after another.