Hacking WBFS Folder dissapeared...

[SSorin]

So,i had a virus on my computer where i plug my usb stick and the files become shortcuts,but still accesible.
I dealt with it for 3 years so far,my 64 gb usb stick being full of shortcuts.
I created an wbfs folder,put games on it,worked a lot of time(3 years as i specified),all was fine,wbfs folder being a shortcut *ONLY* on pc,not on android/wii.
Yesterday,i installed a gamecube game(Super Smash Bros Melee),worked by creating another folder called "games".It was fine till today.
I turned on my Wii,booted up Usb Loader GX,and...what a surprise!All wii games were gone,only the gamecube game is here(i think bcuz its placed in another folder).
Ran virus scan on my usb stick,found nothing,ran virus scan on my pc,found *ONLY* 101 viruses(not a surprise,the last time i ran a virus scan was in 2016),and one of them was called Crypton or something like that,a virus that encrypts files and renames them to something like "Your pc [email protected]"(as my case,but no files found encrypted).
Found out that the wbfs folderbis gone from my usb stick,but the storage is the same.Plugging it into my phone just freezes it instead of letting me modifing the files.
What i tried:
-Create another wbfs folder.
-Virus scan as i said.
-Show hidden folders option.
-Deleting shortcut virus via a cmd command(it made the shortcuts back to folders,but only for 5 seconds,they become shortcuts back).
I don't want to format my usb stick,because i can't download the games back.Any help would be apreciated.
English is not my main language,so..if i do any grammar mistakes you know why.

 

[YOUCANTSTOPME]

The easiest way would be do a full format on your USB drive. A full virus scan on your PC. Also, disable Autorun as it serves more bad than good. And start again.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

First of all STOP making changes to the USB drive, just leave it as is until you have recovered the files or the chances of recovering them will be lowered.

I'm not so sure that shortcut issue is caused by a virus, it seems like an odd thing for a virus to do. But regardless, it might be a good idea to wipe your drive clean and reinstall Windows, since you said your AV found viruses. You can back up your files, just make sure you don't run any programs from that backup. Download a fresh copy of everything you want to install/run.
I also suggest installing Malwarebytes and running scans with that every now and then (free version is good enough) and for AV I use Panda Free because it has a high detection rates and low false positives but realistically it doesn't make a huge difference what AV you use.
Avoid running programs you don't trust, and when you do install programs (regardless of whether you trust them or not), always say no to any extra crap they want you to install as those can sometimes be malware. If you need to run a program you don't trust, run it in a sandbox such as Sandboxie, which you can easily wipe clean so it's as if you never ran the program.
And install some browser extensions to help privacy/safety. Ghostery and uBlock Origin are two good ones to have. They don't specifically block malware, but they block a lot of sketchy domains that you probably want to avoid anyway.
Those are just a few basic tips to avoid getting infected again in the future, but of course they don't account for every situation, they are just to lessen the chances.

But, to recover the files, you can try a recovery tool such as Recuva (very basic and doesn't necessarily always work well, but is free) or GetDataBack.
I recommend GetDataBack, it's the most thorough out of the file recovery tools I've used, though that does come with drawbacks as it can recover duplicate files (due to them having been moved at some point), file fragments, deleted files that have been partially overwritten and so on. But you can set it to be as thorough (or not) as you want, so it won't recover those kinds of files unless you need it to. I suggest starting with a basic non-thorough scan (enabling the option to recover deleted files), which should hopefully find the lost files without recovering too much garbage. And since everything you want to recover is in the same folder, you can easily just untick any garbage/duplicate data or anything you don't need recovered.
It's not free, but you can find it floating around online.

 

[SSorin]

The easiest way would be do a full format on your USB drive. A full virus scan on your PC. Also, disable Autorun as it serves more bad than good. And start again.

I forgot to mention:there was no auto run on the usb,and also i don't wanna format it,its full of games.

 

[YOUCANTSTOPME]

I've seen viruses make weird shortcuts, which point to some other .exe file which is the actual virus. The virus in turn makes shortcuts in all sorts of weird places including any USB drive that is inserted. It does exist.

To recover the files, there are plenty of free "undelete" and "file recovery" programs. You can Google some free ones. I get that it's full of games, but it might not be worth the headache.

 

[SSorin]

First of all STOP making changes to the USB drive, just leave it as is until you have recovered the files or the chances of recovering them will be lowered.

I'm not so sure that shortcut issue is caused by a virus, it seems like an odd thing for a virus to do. But regardless, it might be a good idea to wipe your drive clean and reinstall Windows. You can back up your files, just make sure you don't run any programs from that backup. Download a fresh copy of everything you want to install/run.

But, to recover the files, you can try a recovery tool such as Recuva (very basic and doesn't necessarily always work well, but is free) or GetDataBack.
I recommend GetDataBack, it's the most thorough out of the file recovery tools I've used, though that does come with drawbacks as it can recover duplicate files (due to them having been moved at some point), file fragments, deleted files that have been partially overwritten and so on. But you can set it to be as thorough (or not) as you want, so it won't recover those kinds of files unless you need it to. I suggest starting with a basic non-thorough scan (enabling the option to recover deleted files), which should hopefully find the lost files without recovering too much garbage. And since everything you want to recover is in the same folder, you can easily just untick any garbage/duplicate data or anything you don't need recovered.
It's not free, but you can find it floating around online.

Tried a backup with 2 diferent programs,and also tried recovering deleted files.The result was all my files on my pc but no wbfs file(that is like 50gb)

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Tried another pc,no results...

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Tried a backup with 2 diferent programs,and also tried recovering deleted files.The result was all my files on my pc but no wbfs file(that is like 50gb)

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Tried another pc,no results...

When you do the recovery, make sure you save the recovered files to a different drive otherwise you're just making things worse.
But, try GetDataBack like I said.
And read my previous post again, I made some big edits

 

[SSorin]

Im now running chkdsk
Forgot to mention:everytime i plug my usb in my pc,it shows there was a problem with the drive or something like that.

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Acctually i am speaking to a friend that has some wii roms,he will give me his downloaded roms to put in my usb,but there is one problem,he doesnt want shortcuts on his hdd

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Im now running chkdsk
Forgot to mention:everytime i plug my usb in my pc,it shows there was a problem with the drive or something like that.

Bad idea, chkdisk makes direct changes to the drive and if it messes things up further there's no going back.

I've seen viruses make weird shortcuts, which point to some other .exe file which is the actual virus. The virus in turn makes shortcuts in all sorts of weird places including any USB drive that is inserted. It does exist.

To recover the files, there are plenty of free "undelete" and "file recovery" programs. You can Google some free ones. I get that it's full of games, but it might not be worth the headache.

That's true, I guess. But from what he said it didn't sound like it actually made shortcuts, it just made the files and folders appear as if they were shortcuts, which seems more like a bug in Windows (it happens) or an incompatibility than anything else, but you could be right.

 

[SSorin]

And his pc is not working

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Well,formatting the usb is the single solution

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I will transfer my friend's games into my usb and hope it doesn't get shortcuts,also yeah files shows as shortcuts and folders open in another window,trying to open the file location sends me to cmd.exe location

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I want a quick reply:
Is there a problem if i use a virtual machine to transfer the games from drive to drive?

 

[tech3475]

Many years ago, I encountered a virus on my brothers system which made the folder 'super hidden', I had to use cmd to change the attribute of the folder.

 

[SSorin]

Many years ago, I encountered a virus on my brothers system which made the folder 'super hidden', I had to use cmd to change the attribute of the folder.

Tried changing the attribute,pretty easy thing that doesn't work for me,it just makes the file back to normal for 5 seconds,and they become shortcuts back,also i can't see the hidden file after changing the attribute,can you tell me what command did you used?

 

[tech3475]

Tried changing the attribute,pretty easy thing that doesn't work for me,it just makes the file back to normal for 5 seconds,and they become shortcuts back,also i can't see the hidden file after changing the attribute,can you tell me what command did you used?

If they’re changing back it sounds like something else is wrong.

I cant remember the exact command but I think it might have been one of these:
https://www.lifewire.com/attrib-command-2625802

 

[SSorin]

If they’re changing back it sounds like something else is wrong.

I cant remember the exact command but I think it might have been one of these:
https://www.lifewire.com/attrib-command-2625802

attrib F:*.* /d /s -h -r -s
Tried...still the same thing...who said "the work did by your hands it's better than someone doing your work" is wrong.

 

[SSorin]

Tried AutoRunExterminator.exe and ShortcutKiller.exe(that does the same thing as attrib g:*.* /d /s -h -r -s)
No results...i will wait till tommorow so i can format my usb drive and i will finally install a fresh new windows.(backuped over 650 gb xD)

 

[tech3475]

Tried AutoRunExterminator.exe and ShortcutKiller.exe(that does the same thing as attrib g:*.* /d /s -h -r -s)
No results...i will wait till tommorow so i can format my usb drive and i will finally install a fresh new windows.(backuped over 650 gb xD)

Have you tried something like malwarebytes?

 

[SSorin]

Have you tried something like malwarebytes?

Yes,that found 101 viruses ony pc,but 0 viruses on my usb,i already formated it and put games on it,it works but i still have shortcuts,and i used another pc to full format(not quick).

 

[SSorin]

Problem fixed,folders are still shortcuts