Last week, I used Mommy’s USB Stick to
one of our computers in the production. I was warned by the owner of the
computer that there is a virus in that PC. I ignored precaution given to me
since my computer has its own antivirus.
Upon inserting the USB stick, a
shortcut file was created and all the files where transferred to it. When I
returned the device to Mommy, she was surprised that she cannot find all her
files saved on the device. She immediately scanned and found 4 different
“worms”. Upon cleaning, no file was found but when you checked for the
properties of the device, it shows that there is used space which means the
files were still there but hidden. She started freaking already since all of
the crochet patterns were there and she doesn’t have any back-up files.
I tried to search the net and found
solution on how to recover the files hidden by the virus. Here are the steps:
1. Open the command prompt window (Start
Menu>Programs>accessories>command prompt).
2. Find the letter that corresponds to
your USB stick. You can easily find this in the My computer folder.
3. In the command prompt, type the letter
that corresponds to your USB Stick followed by colon (eg, D: ) and hit enter.
4. Then type in attrib –s –h /s /d *.*
 |
| Command Prompt |
 |
| USB Content After performing the task in Command Prompt |
6. Open this and you will find the current
files in your USB stick.
 |
| Content of the File Folder |
For a safer move, I cut first all the
file and put them in a new folder (Desktop) before reformatting the USB stick.
This is just an optional though.
Care to share some of your tips on how to retrieve missing files from an infected USB stick?