Here is a guest article from Rijul, hope you find it useful and interesting.
Today every one is affraid of pen drive.Every computer user consider it as a monster. Here is something that could change your attitude towards pendrive.
Here i am going to show you how to make your pendrive free from virus.
First, you have to know how much free space is left on the USB drive. Plug in the drive, go to My Computer, right click on the drive letter and select Properties.Take note of the “Free space” that is in bytes.My USB drive has 1,300,594,688 free space, so I will need to create a dummy file that has the exact file size.
usb drive properties
The best and easiest way is to use fsutil, a command line tool included in windows. Open up command prompt from Start Menu > Accessories and type the following command:
fsutil command
You will see that your USB flash drive’s LED is blinking meaning the file is being created.Now my pendrive has 0 free space and virus won,t be able to get in. You can change 1300594688 to the size that you want in bytes. F: is the letter of my USB flash drive and IamDummy is the file name.When you want to copy files into USB removable drive, simply delete dummy file.When you’re done ,create the dummy file again using the fsutil command.
Dummy file
If you’re looking for a graphical tool to create dummy fake files, here are a few that I found. Some are slower, and some with NTFS restriction,
I hope you find this useful.
I’ve created small utility for protecting usb drives. It creates or modifies dummy file which takes all free space and there is no more space for viruses – http://code.google.com/p/usbdummyprotect/
you can use truecrypt to create encrypted file container which is of the same size as the free space in your pen drive and store files into it.this way you can use the pendrive for read write oerations while simultaneously making it appear to the virus that it has no space left.I’ve been able to do it without any problems.
Hi Rijul,
First of all i am sorry to tell u that this idea is not at all good and useless, because,
Suppose you copied the file and made the disk full, in that case virus wont effect we can assume. and if any data need to be added then…???? as soon as we delete that dummy file and copy the new data file, virus might be already intruded to the disk. I think 99% people using the pen drive to copy the data every time, rather than reading the preloaded data always. If later is the case, a DVD/CD ROM would do the needful. Don’t you think so.?
hey u know!!!
What if the USB is already infected with virus??
I thought of this idea before..but..
When a pen drive is already infected, the virus replaces the stored files..
The virus had deleted my files to make a place for itself/…!!
However, i got rid of the virus using cmd.exe and other techniques
i have a virus in my usb which has now infected my pc too, it contains some sort of a readme file which keeps coming up no matter how many times i format the pen drive.
the readme file contains something written in a foreign language( probably chinese) and i also see an autorun.file which keeps showing up everytime i refresh ….
plz help!!
here you can find the fsutil commands
http://www.justdl.com/books/Windows_Command_Line_Administrators_Pocket_Consultant_MS_Press/DDU0046.html
I think some of you havent understood my post
It is very simple.virus is entering your pen drive only because there is space left in it.So we are using a windows command to create a dump file having a size of the free space in pen drive so that pen drive will be full and no virus will be able to enter.
If you are uncomfortable with windows commands you can also use any other gui based application to create the dump file.
dude gimme the fstil cmds.
This can be useful when you have to give some presentaion or transfer files to a pc at school or office, this is one of the main reason why people use pendrive for.
This is unpractical, but worh knowing.
Use “Smart virus remover”. You can write protect the drive and remove autorun viruses on the drive. Visit http://www.Technize.com
Thanks GK for their UNIQUE invention…
Using the application may help you to protect you pendrive from virus.
Visti the link : http://www.gaijin.at/dlusbwp.php
download USB WriteProtector. Extract the RAR file. Just paste the folder to you pendrive. Then play the .exe file(in the pendrive) and “on” the USB Write Protector. It will prevent your pendrive from comming virus. In the ON status you can only send data from you pendrive, if you need to move something to your pendrive than just change the WriteProtect Status “OFF”.
Some more helpful instructions you can find about the issue from the link given below:
http://www.techyard.net/3-ways-protect-usb-pendrives-from-virus/
MS
Bangladesh
why do u have to make ur usb full(no memory left)
then wats da point cos u cant save anything else on it
and if you wanna save anyting else you have to get rid of dummy file
thats retarded
i can’t under-stand ths trick…..
rAX is right. this is unpractical. but u’ve given us a cool idea. with some tricks and modifications, i can build a graphical tool directly writing into NTFS table making the whole “sealing” progress to be finished in a flash
really cool idea, thanks for sharing BUT I find it somehow unpractical, here’s why:
1- you give the pendrive to someone for some reason, and he try to give you a file:
-you have to delete the file before you give it ti him,
-he has to delete it
-or you have to tell him about this trick,
If he has viruses in his computer he’s going to infect my pendrive as soon as the free space is available again.
2-I want to copy files from an infected computer, so I need to delete to delete this file (no teaching involved) but still a risk.
the bottom line, this way is REALLY GREAT, but for personal use only. and for read-only.
maybe there is a way to inject a small antivirus ?
You mean, a user is supposed to do this everytime he copies the files from the computer and delete it ? and what if the file needs to be copied to another computer, we will have to do this again and again???