Search
  • For Individuals
      « Back
    • Windows Data Recovery

      Recovers lost or deleted Office documents, emails, presentations & multimedia files.

      Free Standard Professional Premium

    • Mac Data Recovery

      Recovers deleted files, photos, videos etc. on Mac.

      Free Standard Professional Premium

    • Photo Recovery

      Recover photos, videos, & audio files from all cameras and storage on Windows or Mac.

      Free Standard Professional Premium

    • Video Repair
    • Photo Repair
    • iPhone Data Recovery
  • For Business
      « Back
    • Email Repair & Converter

      Repair for Exchange Converter for EDB Converter for OST Converter for NSF Converter for OST MBOX Repair for Outlook

    • Database & File Repair

      Repair for MS SQL Repair for Access Repair for QuickBooks Software Repair for Excel Extractor for Windows Backup Repair for MySQL

    • Data Recovery & Erasure

      Data Recovery Professional Data Recovery Technician Mac Recovery for Technician Virtual Machine Recovery File Erasure Software Mobile Erasure Drive Erasure File Eraser Software File Eraser Software for Mac

    • Toolkit

      Exchange Toolkit Outlook Toolkit File Repair Toolkit MS SQL Toolkit Data Recovery Toolkit

    • Forensic

      Email Forensic Exchange Auditor Log Analyzer for MySQL Log Analyzer for MS SQL

  • Store
  • Partners
  • Services
  • Offers
  • Support

 

  • For Individuals
    DIY software for anyone who works with data.

    Windows Data Recovery Recovers lost or deleted Office documents, emails, presentations & multimedia files

    Free Standard Professional Premium

    Mac Data Recovery Especially for Mac users to recover deleted documents and multimedia files from macOS

    Free Standard Professional Premium

    Video Repair Windows Mac Repair multiple corrupt videos in one go. Supports MP4, MOV & other formats.

    StandardPremium

    Photo Recovery Windows Mac Recover photos, videos, & audio files from all cameras and storage on Windows or Mac.

    Standard Professional Premium

    iPhone Data Recovery Windows Mac Recover deleted photos, videos, contacts, messages etc. directly from iPhone & iPad

    Recover Erase Toolkit

    Photo Repair Windows Mac Repair multiple corrupt photos in one go. Supports JPEG & other formats.

    Standard Professional Premium


  • For Business
    • Email Repair
    • Email Converter
    • File Repair
    • Data Recovery & Erasure
    • Toolkit
    • Forensic

    Exchange Repair Repair corrupt EDB file & export mailboxes to Live Exchange or Office 365

    Outlook PST Repair Repair corrupt PST & recover all mailbox items including deleted emails & contacts

    OLM Repair Repair Outlook for Mac (OLM) 2011 & 2016 backup files & recover all mailbox items

    Exchange Toolkit Repair EDB & Exchange backup file to restore mailboxes, convert OST to PST, & convert EDB to PST

    Active Directory Repair Repair corrupt Active Directory database (Ntds.dit file) & extract all objects in original form

    EDB to PST Convert online & offline EDB file & extract all mailbox items including Public Folders in PST

    OST to PST Convert inaccessible OST file & extract all mailbox items including deleted emails in PST

    NSF to PST Convert IBM Notes NSF file & export all mailbox items including emails & attachments to PST

    MBOX to PST Convert MBOX file of Thunderbird, Entourage & other clients, & export mailbox data to PST

    OLM to PST Convert Outlook for Mac Data File (OLM) & export all mailbox data to PST in original form

    GroupWise to PST Convert GroupWise mail & export all mailbox items - emails, attachments, etc. - to PST

    EML to PST Convert Windows Live Mail (EML) file & export mailbox data - emails, attachments, etc. - to PST

    Office 365 to PST Connect to Office 365 account & export mailbox data to PST and various other formats

    DBX to PST Convert Outlook Express (DBX) file & export all mailbox data - emails, attachments, etc. - to PST

    SQL Repair Repair corrupt .mdf & .ndf files and recover all database components in original form

    Access Repair Repair corrupt .ACCDB and .MDB files & recover all records & objects in a new database

    QuickBooks Repair Repair corrupt QuickBooks® data file & recover all file components in original form

    MySQL Repair Repair MyISAM & InnoDB tables and recover all objects - keys, views, tables, triggers, etc.

    Excel Repair Repair corrupt Excel (.XLS & .XLSX) files and recover tables, charts, chart sheet, etc.

    BKF Repair Repair corrupt backup (BKF, ZIP, VHDX and .FD) files and restore complete data

    Database Converter Interconvert MS SQL, MySQL, SQLite, and SQL Anywhere database files

    PowerPoint Repair Repair corrupt PPT files and restore tables, header, footer, & charts, etc. like new

    File Repair Toolkit Repair corrupt Excel, PowerPoint, Word & PDF files & restore data to original form

    Data Recovery Windows Mac Recover lost or deleted data from HDD, SSD, external USB drive, RAID & more.

    Technician Toolkit

    Tape Data Recovery Retrives data from all types and capacities of tape drives including LTO 1, LTO 2, LTO 3, & others.

    Virtual Machine Recovery Recover documents, multimedia files, and database files from any virtual machine

    File Erasure Permanently wipe files and folders, and erase traces of apps and Internet activity.

    Standard Corporate

    Mobile Erasure Certified and permanent data erasure software for iPhones, iPads, & Android devices

    Drive Erasure Certified and permanent data erasure software for HDD, SSD, & other storage media Windows Mac

    Exchange Toolkit 5-in-1 software toolkit to recover Exchange database, convert EDB to PST, convert OST to PST, restore Exchange backup, and reset Windows Server password.

    Outlook Toolkit Comprehensive software suite to repair PST files, merge PST files, eliminate duplicate emails, compact PST files, and recover lost or forgotten Outlook passwords.

    File Repair Toolkit Powerful file repair utility to fix corrupt Word, PowerPoint, and Excel documents created in Microsoft Office. It also repairs corrupt PDF files and recovers all objects.

    MS SQL Toolkit 5-in-1 software toolkit to repair corrupt SQL database, restore database from corrupt backup, reset database password, analyze SQL logs, & interconvert databases.

    Data Recovery Toolkit Software helps to recovers deleted data from Windows, Mac and Linux storage devices. Also supports recovery from RAIDs & Virtual Drives.

    Email Forensic Advanced email forensic solution for cyber experts to audit, analyze, or investigate emails & gather evidences.

    Exchange Auditor Exchange Server monitoring solution to automate audits, scans and generate reports ìn real-time.

    Log Analyzer for MySQL Analyze forensic details of MySQL server database log files such as Redo, General Query, and Binary Log.

    Log Analyzer for MS SQL Track & analyze MS SQL Server database transactions log files.

    Email Forensic
    STELLAR EMAIL FORENSIC

    Advanced email forensic tool to analyze and collect the mailbox data of email clients

    Learn More arrow


    All Products arrow

    All Products arrow

    All Products arrow

    All Products arrow

  • Our Partners
  • Lab Services
  • microphone-icon-android

    Trending Searches

    Data Recovery

    Photo Recovery

    Video Repair

    iPhone Data Recovery

    File Erasure Software

    Exchange Repair

    OST to PST

    PST Repair

    Raid Recovery

    MS SQL Repair

  • English Deutsch Français Nederlands Italiano Español 日本語 简体中文
  • Support
Windows Data Recovery - Standard 4 minute read

How To Fix Folders That Have Become Shortcuts In The External Hard Drive

Updated on February 24th, 2021
Isha Rikhi
Written By
Isha Rikhi
Rohit Arora
Approved By
Rohit Arora

Summary: If your folders become shortcuts after copying to external hard drive then you should read this post to fix this issue.

How To Fix Folders That Have Become Shortcuts In The External Hard Drive

Contents

  • How Does Folder Turn to a Shortcut?
  • How to Fix A Folder that has Become a Shortcut?
  • Which software should you opt for?
  • How Does Stellar Data Recovery- Standard Help in Recovering Data?
  • The Final Word

Picture a condition. You usually save your priceless memories such as videos or photos and business critical data like Spreadsheets, Presentation, or Word Document on the flash drive in separate folders. You follow this practice to access them from anywhere and at any instant of time. However, today, when you attempted to access them on another system, it shows all files as shortcuts. You tried to access the same from your laptop yet you still see your MBs or GBs files into KBs. These files are very important to you. Now, the only query you may have in your mind is how you can fix the folders that have turned into shortcuts.

Before wondering how to fix folders that have become shortcuts, let us have a quick overview of its causes.

How Does Folder Turn to a Shortcut?

Autorun.inf worm and Virus or Trojan turns your healthy folders into a shortcut. It happens when you connect your properly working removable storage device with an infected system. Generally, it makes them hidden.

How to Fix A Folder that has Become a Shortcut?

Solution 1: Unhide

As already stated, sometimes an infection turns the files or folders into a hidden state. Thereby, switching them to a non-hidden mode will make them visible. Steps are as follows:

  1. Click My Computers
  2. Click View Tab
  3. Checkmark Show Hidden Items option

The above is a hit & trial approach and chances to regain inaccessible data from it is very less.

Solution 2: Anti-virus Scan Program

As the root cause of Shortcut creation is malware, thus removing them can help in resolving the issue. For this, you need to run anti-malware or antivirus into the Full Scan mode and remove the malware or virus to access the files or folders.

Steps are as follows:

  1. Click and Open Anti-virus or Anti-malware Program
  2. Click Scan and practice Full Scan
  3. Click Ok
  4. Next, attempt to access Folders

Limitation: Since virus alters the names of files, therefore, attempts to access files after virus removal is a bit tedious.

Solution 3: CMD Command

Another way to recover the shortcut files.

Stellar

Steps are as follows:

  1. Go to Start
  2. Click on Run
  3. Type cmd
  4. Select your device (Memory Card, Pen Drive, etc.)
  5. Type del *.lnk
  6. Type attrib -h -r -s /s /d Drive Letter:*.*
  7. Hit Enter

Limitation: Flash Drives should not be formatted unless you have basic technical knowledge

Since all the above solutions are manual methods, chances of entire recovery are less and that of further aggravation is more. Therefore, resorting to software approach is ideal as it will not only help you in recovering the data entirely but also promises Data Integrity.

Which software should you opt for?

Below is a recommendation on the basis of expert analysis of professionals—Stellar Data Recovery- Standard. This tried, tested, and approved software is an ideal solution to bid goodbye to your Data loss, Deletion, or Inaccessibility issues.

How Does Stellar Data Recovery- Standard Help in Recovering Data?

The overall functioning of this software is sub-divided into three steps —Select, Scan, and Recover. Once you are through with Download, Install, and Registration, simply launches the software and follow the below-stated steps to recover your lost or deleted data.

Step 1: Selection

In this step, you have to select the type of data from the available options to recover followed by the location from where recovery is to be made. ( In this case, you need to select the Folders)

Data Type Selection

Stellar

Location Selection

Stellar

Step 2: Scan & Preview

In this step, you need to scan the storage unit for desired data recovery. On successful completion of the scan, you simply have to select the specific file and Preview them.

Scanning Progress

Stellar

Preview Recoverable Files

Stellar

Step 3: Recover

In this step, you have to check mark the desired files for recovery and save them by specifying the user-defined location followed by clicking on Start Saving.

Stellar

The Recovery Process is Complete!

Note: Make sure to format the system to remove all the virus.

The Final Word

You are now familiar with how to recover files or folders infected by a virus and turns into a shortcut in the external hard drive. Depending on your requirements, you can choose any of the specific solution stated above and recover your lost data.

However, if a recommendation is to be made, then opting for a third-party solution such as Stellar Data Recovery- Standard is a sure-shot solution. The reason being, this Do-It-Yourself solution is completely safe, secure & reliable.

About The Author

isha

Isha is a technical blogger and data recovery expert. She has experience in Windows data recovery. She writes about technical tips and tutorials.

Best Selling Products

Stellar Data Recovery Professional

Stellar Data Recovery Professional

Stellar Data Recovery Professional softw

Read More
Stellar Data Recovery Premium

Stellar Data Recovery Premium

Stellar Data Recovery Premium for Window

Read More
Stellar Data Recovery Technician

Stellar Data Recovery Technician

Stellar Data Recovery Technician intelli

Read More
Stellar Data Recovery Toolkit

Stellar Data Recovery Toolkit

Stellar Data Recovery Toolkit is an adva

Read More

23 comments

  1. Mark says:
    May 16, 2022 at 6:42 am

    Thanks a lot for this article. My maximum of the folder became a shortcut, and I was clueless about what to do. Then I tried solution three mentioned in the blog, and this works. Thanks a lot for helping me out

    Reply
  2. Charles says:
    February 14, 2022 at 3:24 am

    Hi,
    Thanks a lot for providing such great tips and methods. The solution that you have mentioned will help me a lot to resolve my issues. I will try to share with my friends and colleagues who are looking for help

    Reply
  3. Eric says:
    February 13, 2022 at 4:47 am

    Hi,

    Thanks very much for the article. I tried solution 3 on both my affected Thumb drive and external hardisk and the folders that were turned to shortcut return back to normal including all the original files.

    Thanks again

    Reply

Comments navigation

Older comments Page 1 Page 2

Leave a comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

59  −    =  58

Table of Contents    arrow

  1. How Does Folder Turn to a Shortcut?
  2. How to Fix A Folder that has Become a Shortcut?
  3. Which software should you opt for?
  4. How Does Stellar Data Recovery- Standard Help in Recovering Data?
  5. The Final Word

Categories

offer banner

Related Posts

related post
Windows Data Recovery - Standard

Feature update Windows 10 version 21H2 failed to install? Here are some of the Fixes

Stellar Author Farhad Pashaei August 16, 2022 Read More
related post
Windows Data Recovery - Standard

How to Fix PS4 White Light of Death?

Stellar Author Farhad Pashaei August 2, 2022 Read More
related post
Windows Data Recovery - Standard

Solved: “No Option to Empty Recycle Bin on Windows 10/11” Issue

Stellar Author Ratnesh Kumar July 1, 2022 Read More

Free Trial for 60 Days

Stellar Official Website

Stellar Data Recovery Inc.
48 Bridge Street Metuchen,
New Jersey 08840,
United States

ALSO AVAILABLE AT

Partner Logo

About

  • About us
  • Career
  • ISMS Policy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • License Policy
  • Refund Policy
  • End User License Agreement

RESOURCES

  • Blog
  • Articles
  • Product Videos
  • Knowledge Base
  • Case Studies
  • Whitepapers
  • Software Catalog

NEWS & EVENTS

  • News
  • Events

PARTNERS

  • Affiliates
  • Resellers
  • Distributors

Useful Links

  • Contact Us
  • Support
  • Special Offers
  • Student Discounts
  • Awards & Reviews
  • Downloads
  • Store
  • Sitemap
Follow Us

tw in yt

Stellar & Stellar Data Recovery are Registered Trademarks of Stellar Information Technology Pvt. Ltd. © Copyright 2022 Stellar Information Technology Pvt. Ltd. All Trademarks Acknowledged.

Hippa Logo tuv footer partner logo DMCA.com Protection Status
We use cookies on this website. By using this site, you agree that we may store and access cookies on your device Read More Got it!