Files and Folders In USB Pen Drive Showing Shortcuts - [Solved]

While you open your Pen Drive or any removable storage it shows shortcuts only, there are no files and folders that you have saved before. Only you can see your Folders as Links (.lnk) that means shortcuts are having same name of your folders. Sometimes you will not able to see anything even the shortcuts also but when you check the Pen Drive Properties it shows the used space. Normally it happens due to virus, you may have used your Pen Drive in a virus infected PC. With a Virus infection your files and folders are turned into shortcuts or hidden. In that case when you Double click on the shortcut, it does nothing. So you lost your important Data, absolutely wrong you can easily recover these Files and folders by following the below steps.

If the files and folders in your flash drive or pen drive or SD card showing shortcuts and the files you have saved is no more in the flash drive. So do not worry you can easily recover you files and folders in the pen drive or any other external storage drives by using the below method, and this method is free and no need to use any paid Windows applications, just follow the commands and recover you virus infected files, please follow the below steps.

Files and Folders On USB Pen Drive Showing Shortcuts - [Solved]

How To Scan Pen Drive and Recover Infected Files Using Command on Your Windows Computer.

Steps:

• Click on Start ->> Run ->> type cmd and click on OK.
• Then type attrib -h -r -s /S /D X:\*.* (where X is your Pen Drive letter)
• or copy the above command and Right-click in the Command Prompt and paste it. Replace the letter x with your pen drive letter. Press Enter.
• Now open your Pen Drive, you can see the files and folders on your USB pen drive. Copy these files to your Hard Drive then format the Pen Drive and copy again to your Pen Drive.
• Remember to scan your computer using Good Antivirus like Kaspersky, Avast, AVG etc. or use Microsoft Security Essential which is Free Antivirus from Microsoft for Windows.

What These Commands Do?
-   Clears an attribute.
H   Hidden file attribute.
R   Read-only file attribute.
S   System file attribute.
/S  Processes matching files in the current folder and all sub-folders.
/D  Processes folders as well.

If you do not have idea about command prompt then open your My Computer-> open your Pen Drive then go to the Address bar and type the folder name then press Enter.

Example: X:\Folder name ( where X is your Pen Drive Letter and Folder name is your Folder name, suppose you have a shortcut with the name Data then type X:\Data don't type data.lnk).

This procedure only works, if you are able to see the shortcuts or know the folder names that you have given, Otherwise you have to follow the Command prompt procedure.