You have a USB and I’m sure that you had problem with it more than 1 time. The main reason is because of virus. And you will use antivirus software to delete these damn viruses, or might format it. But it is said that ‘Prevention is better than cure.’ I’ll show you some simples step to prevent your beloved USB from virus

So how can you know that your USB is infected? When you right click your USB, you will see “Autoplay” in Bold in the first line. It means that your USB has been infected with virus, 90% possibility! Because the first line should be Open or Expore instead of Autoplay
Virus can be communicated to USB because it copies itself to USB and creat a file autorun.inf to activate virus itself. And it is so smart to be in hidden form. When you insert a USB to your computer, it takes advantage of your habit of double-click on USB symbol in My Computer to break into your computer. There, it duplicates and disperses to everywhere. Their next patients are other USB inserting to the computer.

You may follow these 5 steps to make a shell for your USB:

Step 1: Check your USB’s name. For ex, your USB drive is E: and label is THANHNGOC

Step 2: Convert file system of USB into NTFS: Start > Run, type: “convert : /FS:NTFS”. For ex, with your USB in drive E, you type: “convert E: /FS:NTFS”. Note: if your USB has function of MP3 and sound record, you should skip this step, because your multimedia player can not run MP3 files in your USB.

Step 3: Create an autorun.inf with whatever content you want; even let it empty is okay. Copy that autorun file to your USB. (You may create file autorun.inf by: Click Tools on menu > > Folder Option> Chọn View > Remove Tick in square Hide Extentions for known file types> OK. Then make a new folder and name its autorun.inf. After that, you have to come back to select Hide Extentions for known file types. Otherwise, all file names are so frustrated.)

Step 4: Right-click on the autorun file > Property > Tick Read Only, you may choose Hidden

Step 5: Prevented all access to file autorun.inf: Click Start > Run > type: “cacls \autorun.inf /D Everyone”. For ex, you type “cacls E:\autorun.inf /D Everyone” A black window will appear and it may require you to type USB label. Type its name (I type THANHNGOC) and Enter. It takes about 5 seconds to complete.

I do not say that you may prevent your USB from all viruses, but this way partly help your USB be safe to most virus infecting via USB. The last
recommend is to install a reliable antivirus software with automatic update.

Goodluck!

Nice guide . imho best way to protect yourself from viri is to have anti-virussoftware installed on your computer. As soon as you plug-in a usb device, the av-on-access protection should check it and should prevent the virus from loading.

I'm thinking about installing a portable antivirus program right onto my usb drive and configure it to do a quick scan when the drives inserted.
Can't really be too sure of what to expect when you plug in your usb to another computer that you don't own, personally i wouldn't mind if a virus just got onto the usb because i know my home antivirus will pick it up but if it starts destroying files and sending data etc then i do mind, having the antivirus and portable firewall installed should get rid of this issue.

-HellFire

ive never had a problem with mine before.

i have protable apps which has a portable virus scanner. anyway, a normal virus protector program would scan it anyway, well mine does.

Nice guide, had an encounter once in my USB and it kind of 'Autoplay' the virus. But after clearing the virus by formatting, the first thing I did was to disable AutoPlay. However, I forgotten what I did for the disabling of AutoPlay. So any nice soul here can help me out. Cheers

In Windows XP...

I've never had any problems with my usb gadgets, I often use my first generation ipod shuffle as a flash drive, and I've never seen an autoplay thing before, so that's a good sign That's a good guide, I wasen't aware that this sort of thing could happen.

I should mention the simplest solution of all: just buy a usb key with a physical read-only/read-write toggle switch. These used to be pretty standard, though they're a little harder to find these days, it's certainly not impossible to track them down.

Making your USB stick read-only is valid if you want to give a picture to somebody.
If you want to pick a text from your friend's computer, you must set your USB stick back to read-write, and then the viruses can come back.
A nice way is to scan your stick just after having written your file. I have ClamWind portable on my usb stick, so I use my own antivirus for scanning the new files, it's a very safe way. You update your ClamWin on the USB stick using your home computer, so it's always up-to-date, and you use it in order to test while picking files from your friend's computer.
If Portable ClamWin says that your USB files are infected, then probably your friend's computer has a problem, and you are advised as soon as you load+scan your file.

Regards
Yordan

Well, it's the best to have a portable anti-virus program in your USB. Unluckily, I don't have . So just think that someone with an old USB like mine sees the giudeline useful .
I had install anti-virus program in my computer, but I experienced so many times it was infected after I used it at the university's computers, and some files were badly damaged before I scanned it at home. But this way helps me a lot (though it's a little bit mentally)

And, it can be applied to other drives in your computer, not only USB.

For windows XP, i would use tweakUI, it's simpler to configure instead of directly editing the registry, which is error prone. Get a copy of tweakUI from microsoft, it's free. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloa...ppowertoys.mspx

Once you run it, goes to My Computer\Auto Play\Drive. Uncheck all your drive. Under Type, i would keep both the Enable Auto Play for CD and DVD drives and removable drives. That way, non of the drive will autoplay it's content, and at the same time, if you want to run the autoplay, you can just right click on the drive and select autoplay. If you did the the other way around, which is keeping all the drives checked, and uncheck both the option under Types, then you will not be able to right click and select autoplay. Which sometime is useful, as some CD or DVD might use the autoplay function to run the setup or menu. Otherwise, you'll have to dig in the CD or DVD for the exe.

Lately there's been quite a few viruses or spyware utilizing the autoplay\autorun feature and auto plant itself whenever you click on the drive. Thus disabling the autoplay does help alot here. Also good prevention for those who share their thumbdrives a lot.

Good Luck