Erasing a USB stick of all virus traces

[ixelion]

I managed to recover data from an infected USB stick, but now I want to reuse the stick. I formatted it in Windows XP and it appears to be ok, but I am still worried that the virus may still be on the drive, hidden.

Scanning the drive with anti virus is useless because Norton can't contain it despite having latest definitions, security updates etc.

So is formatting enough or is there something else I can do to the drive to completely remove any possibility of a hidden virus?

 

[mpilchfamily]

a format is enough to clean it. Only way it could come back is if you use data recovery software on the drive. But if you want to be sure there are programs out there that will do a DOD (department of defense) approved wipe of the drive so the data can't be recovered. Basically writes all 1s then all 0s to every bit of the memory and will do this multiple times. One run threw is enough for a flash drive. Its magnetic drives that can still hold bit of the old information after writing over the cleared data.

 

[Zap]

Stop. Hammertime!

Seriously though, if formatting isn't good enough for you, then buy a new one. Total peace of mind! I just checked, and MicroCenter has 2GB USB flash drives from $6.99, 4GB from $8.99 and 8GB from $14.99. This is all regular pricing and not even sale/rebate pricing.

 

[somethingsketchy]

I agree with Zap and mplich, at this point if a reformat was "not enough", in your opinion, to wipe the virus off the thumb drive, just buy another thumb drive. They are cheap nowadays especially with an 8GB drive. Personally, if you are paranoid enough, reformat it again. But quite frankly I feel you are safe.

 

[California Roll]

Agree with all the previous posters. Depending how paranoid I was I'd do the following:

1) Format
2) http://www.dban.org/
3) Toss it

I've seen viruses on USB sticks twice. Formatted them and no problems at all.

 

[Bateluer]

You could also use a Linux Live CD to boot to functional Linux OS then format the drive without fear of a possible infection of your Windows install. Format it in a nonFAT/NTFS file system, then reformat it in Windows. Any possible infection will be gone.