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A couple of weeks ago a coworker asked me to help him with a problem. A virus infected his USB drive. The virus appeared to delete all the folders on his USB drive. I cleaned out the virus from the USB drive with Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009. There was still a problem; the folders the virus deleted were still missing.
[adblockingdetector id=”2″]I enabled the option on the computer to view hidden files and folders, still no folders in sight. I used a program that recovers deleted files and folders. It recovered some folders and the files within them but not everything. The next day my coworker informed me that he discovered something rather odd. He plugged the USB drive into a Macintosh computer and was able to view the deleted folders. I thought about this for a bit.
I assumed that the virus was programmed to only affect the way Windows operating systems viewed the drive and ignored affecting the Mac OS. I instructed my coworker to plug in the USB drive into a Mac and copy all the folders to the Mac desktop. Then I told him to format the USB drive on a Windows computer and plug it back in the Mac. Last I instructed him to copy all the folders back on the drive and test it out on a Windows computer. It worked! The USB drive is now virus-free with all the original files and folders.
The next week another person came to me with the exact problem; a virus on their USB drive that appeared to delete all the folders. I performed my Kaspersky + Mac solution and it worked again. Plugging a USB drive in a Macintosh computer solved the problem in this scenario. I will also assume plugging the USB drive in a Linux PC will solve this problem since the USB virus is programmed to only target Windows PCs.
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Tags: Kaspersky Mac fixed problem, USB drive wiped out, USB virus deleted folders