Remove Virus from Flash Drive without using Antivirus

remove virus from flash drive

This article presents a method which is useful to remove virus from a flash drive by safely formatting it without using any Antivirus Software. This method would be useful for users who do not have any Antivirus Software installed on their computers. Please note that some users refer a flash drive as Pen Drive or USB Pen Drive or USB drive sometimes.

A user should safely format a flash drive infected with virus before using it. This will remove virus from the flash drive. This will also prevent spread of infection across the computer systems. One can use an effective Antivirus software to scan and clean the infected files on the drive. But, such effective antivirus may not be free. A user may need to purchase, install and configure before using it for scanning flash drive. Moreover, freely available anti-viruses may not have such options to scan the drive before accessing its data.

However, there is a free workable solution to clean such infected flash drive without the need of a Antivirus software. In normal scenarios, this solution should work effectively on your Windows system. The solution is that the user should format the virus infected flash drive safely. This will prevent damage to the current system in which the user has inserted it. It will also prevent spread of virus on other systems in which it will be inserted for transferring files. You may format the drive by right clicking on the drive icon in File Explorer. Then selecting the format option. However, the virus may still persist on it. That’s why you should format the drive safely.

One can understand formatting a flash drive safely as following:

“The system should complete the formatting of flash drive before the execution of any file present on it”

The formatting process deletes and re-creates all the tracks and sectors on a disk. Thus removing all references to existing files on the disk and the making the files inaccessible.

An Infected USB drive may contain virus in the form of executable files. The virus creators may have setup these virus files on Autorun.  Thus, as soon as user inserts the Flash Drive in the USB slot, these auto-executable files will execute. Subsequently, their execution will harm the system. These virus files may even have a code to copy themselves on the system disks. Moreover, they may re-copy themselves on the flash drive even after formatting. Whenever a user inserts another flash drive in the system, these virus files will infect those flash drives too.

Thus, most importantly, you should forcefully prevent execution of such files in flash drive upon inserting and before formatting it. You can do this by turning off the Autoplay option for USB devices. Turn it off before inserting the drive in the USB slot. Search for USB settings in control panel and Turn off Autoplay option.

The below image shown the options as an illustration:

turn off USB auto play in Windows

It is a good practice to keep Autoplay turned off in all computer systems. Always scan every flash drive upon inserting it in USB slot and before opening it to access its content.

You can watch the following video for practical demonstration of the process:

The above video shows the process followed in Windows. However, the same process would also be available in previous versions of Windows Operating System. The user should search for the USB Autoplay option in control panel of other versions and turn it off. Ensure that you turn it off before inserting the infected USB pen drive in the system.

Caution: This process will delete entire data on the pen drive. Thus, the user should ensure that back up of data on the flash drive is available with the user. User should scan the flash drive with an effective Antivirus Software only, if data is crucial. This process may prevent any losses of data in files present on the drive. However, antivirus may still not be able to recover and rectify errors already caused to files on flash drive.

Thus, as a recommendation, user should always use an effective antivirus software on Windows system. Secondly, always scan a flash drive before opening it on your Windows System. Thirdly, user should safely format a flash Drive infected with virus before use.

Tip: Check out how to repair flash drive damaged by Flashing Tools if your flash drive has reduced to a smaller size while making it bootable using certain flashing tools such as Rufus, Balena Etcher, USB maker, etc.

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