A very common problem when all the folders on your flash drive become shortcuts. If you come across this and are looking for a solution to resolve this trouble, then you have come to the right place. In fact, this is not the worst problem that can happen, and eliminating it will not be any problem. Just do not try to delete anything from your media, because your data is not stored anywhere and is in its place.
A certain virus hides folders on your flash drive. More precisely, it is a trojan (Backdoor.win32.ruskill). How does she act? Everything is very simple. It disguises itself as directories that you have. Instead, the Trojan made its own shortcuts. This process is implemented using a worm. Real directories just became hidden. But do not try to run these shortcuts of your data. It is not for nothing that folders have become shortcuts. They can do big troubles on your computer.
Of course, if the flash drive does not have any valuable information for you or its copy is already available elsewhere, you can safely format it. In this case, the shortcuts for the folders that the Trojan created will be deleted along with the data. But if there is nowhere to restore them, then read on.
So what should you do if folders become shortcuts? This trouble can be eliminated in several ways. There is a lot of software, but we will consider the manual method. The antivirus must detect the viral agent. If this does not happen, run it and scan your flash drive. If he does not find anything, change it to another. After that, go to the computer through the explorer and find the service tab in the upper part of the panel. Launch this menu and select the folder properties. Select the section of the view where you will need to uncheck the item for hiding protected system files, then select the checkbox next to the display of hidden files and folders.
If you did everything correctly, go to your drive, where you will find your folders hidden by the insidious Trojan before that. Create new directories whose names will be almost identical to those that were hidden. After that, go to each directory that was hidden and copy-paste all the data into the newly created objects. After that, empty folders must be deleted. If your antivirus program has not deleted the RECYCLER directory, do it yourself. All - the problem when folders became shortcuts is resolved.
You can also just in case check the remaining traces of the enemy software. They can take place. In the user app data folder (for Piggy) or roaming (for Seven), see that there is no executable consisting of an unrelated set of letters and numbers. If you find it, remove it immediately. This is an executable virus file.
It also does not hurt to look into the registry. Launch the start menu and in the run window issue the regedit command. Go to the HKEY_CURENT_USERS \ Softwares \ Mikrosoft \ Window \ CurrentVersions \ Run section, where you also need to delete the similar virus name. This is the end of the decontamination procedure. Your computer is now completely clean and non-contagious. Just in case, perform a full scan of it with your antivirus program.