epub files on kobo have all been changed into shortcut files?

[emme278]

Hi everyone,

I'm been googling to no avail so I'm hoping someone can help me out here.

All my epub files on my kobo touch seem to have become converted into shortcut files (the 1 kb ones with the small arrow) for some reason. It's really strange - whenever I drag new epub files over on the computer, they become converted into shortcut files but when the novels still open up fine on the ereader.

I'm hoping for a solution that doesn't involve having to reformat everything (ie. erasing everything and starting from scratch means having to reload 500+ files all from different areas - I was never the most organized person...).

Thanks in advance!

[Solicitous]

I think you'll find when highlighting and dragging the files over Windows default action is creating a shortcut to the original file. Next time highlight the files, right click and select 'copy' then in your destination folder (where you want them copied to) right click and select "paste".

[emme278]

Originally Posted by Solicitous

I think you'll find when highlighting and dragging the files over Windows default action is creating a shortcut to the original file. Next time highlight the files, right click and select 'copy' then in your destination folder (where you want them copied to) right click and select "paste".

Thanks for your reply. I was also wondering - would you know of any way that I can get my files back into their original epub format on the kobo without having to add every book again?

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by emme278

Thanks for your reply. I was also wondering - would you know of any way that I can get my files back into their original epub format on the kobo without having to add every book again?

Probably the epub files are there as well. Do a search for *.epub and see.
If they are you should be able to just delete the shortcut files.

Helen

[Ripplinger]

Originally Posted by Solicitous

I think you'll find when highlighting and dragging the files over Windows default action is creating a shortcut to the original file. Next time highlight the files, right click and select 'copy' then in your destination folder (where you want them copied to) right click and select "paste".

If you hold down the Control key while dragging to the new location, that will also force Windows to copy files and not create shortcuts, if you prefer the easier motion of just dragging files. You can target multiple files and then just hold down Control before grabbing them to drag to the new location.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by emme278

All my epub files on my kobo touch seem to have become converted into shortcut files (the 1 kb ones with the small arrow) for some reason. It's really strange - whenever I drag new epub files over on the computer, they become converted into shortcut files but when the novels still open up fine on the ereader.

If the device can open the book when you disconnect, that means the files are actually copied. You can check this by looking at the file size.

The icon displayed should be whatever is used by the application that opens epubs in Windows. Has that changed? Does double clicking the epub still open it?

[emme278]

Hi everyone,

I think I've figured out the issue - and it wasn't Kobo's fault this time. The same thing also happened to my USB stick when I plugged it in. So I did more searching and it turns out that it's actually some kind of malware that turns all files on external storage devices into shortcut files.

Anyways, it's all been fixed now and thank you everyone for your help!!