When formatting a flash drive doesn't erase a virus

USB viruses are very common and one of the solutions that Windows users resort to when facing one of those bothersome thingies is formatting.
Yes, the complete destruction of data on the device should be enough to get rid of any virus, right? After all, nothing can survive a nuclear bomb...except cockroaches, scorpions, and who knows what else.

Yesterday, a proud user of Windows 7 came to my office with an infected USB drive and, since he knew that Linux is more efficient to deal with those infections than Windows is, he used Mandriva to erase the virus and all the folders it created. However, when he tried to copy his files back into the drive, he got several error messages.

I took his pen drive and checked: some files were still masked and Mandriva would not let me erase them, so I opened Mandriva Control Center and formatted the drive as a FAT32 Windows partition. Yet, files still refused to be copied into this rebellious device, that was apparently clean, or should have been, as it had undergone a formatting operation.


THE VIRUS SURVIVED A FORMATTING OPERATION!

I suspected that the virus might have been hiding somewhere else. After all, there are computer viruses that allocate themselves in the boot sector, so you only waste your time formatting the HD to eliminate them.

I opened Mandriva Control Center again and reformatted the pen drive, but this time I did as a Linux EXT3 partition. When I finished,I could see a nice folder named "lost+found", which I tried to delete manually. I had no luck; the folder was locked.


THE TERMINAL: THE TRUE POWER OF LINUX!

I opened the terminal, typed SU, entered my root password and executed the command

rd --ignore-fail-on-non-empty lost+found

With that powerful spell, the folder was gone!


RESTORING THE WINDOWS PARTITION

After that, I reformatted the drive again as a Windows FAT32 partition and we got no problems copying information to it.



It's good to have the Linux terminal to handle viruses that resist GUI removal...

Sorry, we don't sell flash drives anymore

A rather curious phenomenon has been occurring near campus lately: vendors are refusing to distribute USB flash drives, those handy devices for storing data. The first time I got a "NO, we don't have USB sticks" as an answer, I thought that the vendor had simply ran out of stock. However, time passed by and flash drives were not available. Not even one. What was going on?

This responded to the wrong "my-hardware-is-defective" assumption that is so common in a Windows monoculture. I have seen flash drives "fail" countless times. The most common problems are:

1. Missing folders
2. Missing files
3. Impossibility to record data
4. Failure to erase some folders
   
5. Inexplicable virus alerts (with the subsequent affirmation "I scanned it with my anti-virus!")
   

I saw a young woman return her memory stick to a vendor that offered a warranty. She described some of the problems mentioned above. Of course, as Windows users never blame their OS, they have to blame this strange behavior on something and the poor hardware is the one that gets all the kicks. So they complain to vendors.

The vendor, inadvertently, falls into the trap. So, s/he either returns the money or replaces a USB drive that is perfect with a new one. This becomes a truly lousy business that, given the quantity of repetitions, was enough to show red numbers. Hence, the vendor decided not to sell that kind of hardware anymore.

With Linux, I have been able to show many USB flash drive owners that the memory stick is perfect and that the problems listed above are the consequence of virus infections. These infections happen thanks to the weak security of Windows and the ignorance of the user. To get rid of the problem, all you have to do is remove the pesky hidden files...which you achieve with two clicks in Linux. In Windows, well, you need to disable system restore, go to the registry, apply patches, reboot (can't do anything without rebooting, you know?)... You might also need a great deal of good luck and all the charms you can get.

I have a question. What will vendors do once that viruses become more common in, say, memory cards? Of course those will not be perceived as OS problems, either. Are those storage devices going to be banned as well? No wonder why Microsoft could come up with the stupid idea of banning infected computers from the Web...