USB – How to Clean Virus-Hidden Files on USB Hard Disk

usbvirus

I have 1 GB hard drive with files hidden on it due to a virus. All of its contents were gone after a virus got in when I gave the drive to someone else. After research found that it was a virus may be.

I ran Nortan Anti-Virus and removed a certain virus. Then ran Malwarebytes, now Ad-Aware and AVG 2011 Anti-Virus.

After that, I could see the files on my other computer. But now I have hooked this to my new MacBook Pro—which is running Windows—I can’t see the files. The Anti-Virus finds all the files and Mac OS X wrote a 400 MB directory there which I can see but nothing else.

How to fix this? Which program will fix it?

Best Answer

This virus has been going around quite a bit recently and I have fixed it at least 10 times myself in the past couple of weeks.

Whilst the removers try to do a good job at removing the rootkit, they do not undo the actual damage caused by it. (Also, I have seen a few varieties that remain and can redirect Google search results, you may want to warn your friend).

I am not sure of a good/quick/easy way from a Mac, but, the easiest thing you can do from a Windows machine is to go to a command prompt (do not think you need elevated, but if you get an error, do it), and type the following:

x:
cd\
attrib -h /S

Replace x: with the letter assigned to the drive. This will go through all files on the drive and remove the hidden attribute. Unfortunately, if you have manually set it on any, this will be wiped - but not a lot of people do this on their own files.

Hope this helps, if you need any follow up help, especially as this isn't that easy, please write a comment and I (or someone else) will try to help you.

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