How to recover documents off a virus infected flash drive

Hey, it happens. Sooner or later you will plug that trusty flash drive of yours into an infected terminal and boom!, you drive is infected. PC World says that “It’s scary just to plug in such a drive. Since most malicious software is OS specific, it’s a good idea to perform the file recovery on a non-Windows computer, such as a Mac or a Linux based machine.

If you must plug the flash drive into a Windows PC, do it very carefully. Before you attach the infected file, update Windows itself and all of your security programs. Next, unplug all of your Internet and local network connections, so your computer can’t communicate with the outside world. And lasty, have a backup of your important files as you never know what might happen.

Now turn off AutoPlay for your flash drive. Windows XP users should do this with Tweak UI, a free Microsoft Powertoy. Once you’ve installed and opened Tweak UI, navigate its left pane to My Computer•AutoPlay•Types. Uncheck Enable Autoplay for removable drives, and click OK or Apply.

If you use Vista, click Start, type autoplay, and press ‹Enter›. For ‘Software and games’, select Take no action and click Save.

Plug in the drive and move the files you need onto another removable storage device (not your hard drive). The documents themselves could be infected, so move only the ones you’re sure you can’t do without to a folder on the removable medium, and scan that folder with every security program you have. Finally, shut down the PC, remove and throw away the flash drive, plug the PC back into the network, and reboot. Always be mindful of Spector’s First Law of Safe Computing: Never rely on one copy of anything. If you had made backups of those important documents before the infection, you could have thrown the unclean flash drive away at the first sign of disease.

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