If you are a Windows user, I hope this helps you out.
Despite having Panda USB Vaccine installed, I am occasionally hit by a strange USB Virus that changes my USB files into shortcuts. The virus wants the user to think that all the files in the USB have been corrupted and that the only thing left to do is to re-format the USB key, to make it usable.
But don't format just yet. Try to scan your thumb drive first and see if your anti-virus software or malware scanner can clean it.
Next, open up a DOS window by clicking on the Start Icon, then typing CMD on the search box.
Once the command window is open, change to the drive letter assigned to your USB drive, (let's say for the sake of argument, that letter is X:) by typing X: on the command prompt. Now you can run the ATTRIB command on all files in your USB drive. Type help ATTRIB to know more about the command.
The USB virus created shortcuts with the same names as your files and change the attribute of your original files so that they become read-only, and hidden. All you need to do is to remove the hidden, read-only, and system attributes from all the files in your USB drive so that you can see and use these files once more.
Ok, enough explanation, just try typing " ATTRIB -R -A -S -H /S /D X: ". If you are lucky, then the files that you thought were lost should now be seen if you type DIR on the command prompt or open windows explorer and browse the contents of the USB drive. The files should now be re-usable. You can delete the shortcuts created by the virus. And in the future, try to disable autorun on your USB drives.
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