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| .ink is the most common extension it creates |
We create shortcuts to files and folders to
different locations for an easy access and the shortcut made has a blue arrow
turned upwards left-side. But what if it’s not created by you? You might have seen
the drive names as shortcuts in “MY Computer” and not just the usual drive
names in windows pc? Yes, it’s called shortcut virus and that creates the
shortcut of your hard drive mainly USB drives such as pen drives, memory cards
etc. It encapsulates the original data in your disk and creates a similar
looking shortcut link for you to click so that it gains access to your
important data mainly your credit/debit card details, pins, passwords and other
important things.
Pen-drives, memory cards are the top-most victims
of this type of viruses as we use them in many different systems for data
transfer. The most common extension of shortcut virus is (.ink). The files are hidden
in the drive or each and every file or folder has a shortcut on the drive
making it difficult for you to get your desired data or files. Even if you are
saving something in that drive it immediately creates its shortcut and hides
the file.
It is so frustrating to get access, in many cases
formatting the drive doesn’t solve the problem and it seems the drive is
corrupt or there is some hardware problem but it is a rare scenario. Formatting
is the best action or we can say the ultimate action to get rid of it once and
for all but there are some other solutions too if the data is important. You
can recover the data as it was, save it somewhere safe and then format the
drive.
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| drive shortcut created by the virus |
Let’s see what the different methods to solve
this problem are:-
Method 1
–
Clean up and remove Shortcut Virus by CMD -
1. Click on Start button and type CMD in the space
bar and right click on it and click “Run as Administrator”;
2. You will see this in the command prompt -
C:\Windows\system32>
3. Now you want to repair your drive which is not C. Suppose
your pen drive is G, then you will have to enter to it by typing –
G: and hit enter.
Now it is G:\>
4. Now type dir /w/a
This will display the list of all the files and folders
including hidden files and directories.
5. Now to recover all the files in the drive in one
stance type the following –
attrib –h –s –r /s /d
And hit enter. There is space between –h –s and others.
All the files will be recovered from the shortcut file names to the original
name in the drive. Copy them to different drive and format it.
6. To recover files/folders one by one do the following
–
attrib –s –h “G:\Presentation”
attrib –s –h “G:\work”
Here presentation and work are the folder/file names in
the drive that are displayed using step 4. Type your folder name one by one to
recover them.
You’ll be able to see your files and data on Windows PC
or USB flash drive now.
Method 2
-
Remove Shortcut Virus with Anti-virus Software and other tools-
For the double
guarantee, you can download and install anti-virus software to clean up all
shortcut virus from Windows 10/8/7/XP or external USB drives memory cards etc. Below
anti-virus software and tools can also be used to remove the shortcut virus.
·
Trojan
Removal Tool;
·
Shortcut
virus fixfolder;
·
Malwarebytes
Anti-Malware, etc.
Method 3
–
Delete/Wipe/Remove Shortcut Virus from Registry -
1.
Press Win+R and type: regedit and press enter, windows
registry window will be opened.
2. Navigate
to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Click on Software > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion >
Click Run;
3.
Press Win + R, type: msconfig > Click OK;
4. In Startup,
uncheck everything except for the anti-virus software.
5.
Click OK > Click Restart now.
Method 4
–
Remove shortcut virus by creating a .bat File –
1.
Open notepad
2.
Copy & paste the below code
@echo off
attrib -h
-s -r -a /s /d Drive_name:*.*
attrib -h
-s -r -a /s /d Drive_name:*.*
attrib -h
-s -r -a /s /d Drive_name:*.*
@echo complete
3.
Save the file with the name virusremoval.bat
[Note: Replace
the Drive_name with the infected drive name for example (attrib -h
-s -r -a /s /d G:*.*) here G is the drive name. If you have more than 1
infected drive then simply copy and paste the above commands two times for
two drives and three times for three drives.]
4. Now simply close the
file and run it.
Once everything
is done remove the file from the drive and folder too.
In these ways you can remove shortcut virus
from your infected drive and save your important data. Be
careful in using the internet and clicking suspicious links, beware of
attaching others usb drive into your system, always have an updated anti-virus
software in your pc, never open the usb drive before scanning it for virus
files, and always have a backup of your files in other drives – hard drives or
cloud storage.
