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I'm working on a windows 7 premium 64 bits computer.

I own several USB flash drives. I've recently got a promotional one, when I plugged it on the computer the usual Windows popup that ask what you want to do with the drive (play videos/watch images/open in file explorer/etc.) only showed the open in explorer option, which I picked. What was odd is that instead of directly opening the explorer with the content of the flash drive, Windows opened My Computer and I had to open the drive from there. After that, every other flash drive I own got the same behaviour when plugged in and all the file they contained "disappeared". The space on the drive was still used so I guessed that my file were not deleted however I had no way to show them. After a bit of digging arround I found a solution in the following command :

attrib -h -r -s /s /d x:\*.*

where x is the name of the drive. This allowed me to get my files back so my question is what happeend and how can I prevent it ?

WizLiz
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  • Your "promotional" USB was infected with the "usb hidden file virus". – DavidPostill Oct 06 '15 at 07:46
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    Possible duplicate of [How can I remove malicious spyware, malware, adware, viruses, trojans or rootkits from my PC?](http://superuser.com/questions/100360/how-can-i-remove-malicious-spyware-malware-adware-viruses-trojans-or-rootkit) – DavidPostill Oct 06 '15 at 07:48
  • I really doubt that given that its was provided by my university. That's still possible but I doubt it. – WizLiz Oct 06 '15 at 07:48
  • Your computer could have already had the virus when you inserted the USB stick. There are many differerent (but similar in effect) viruses with the symptoms and solutions you describe. – DavidPostill Oct 06 '15 at 07:51
  • It's probable though highly unlikely, given the fact that any other drive was working properly prior to that. Then again it would have been on the drive but I found nothing suspicious on it and it was empty when given to me. – WizLiz Oct 06 '15 at 07:55
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    It wouldn't hurt to scan your computer anyways ... – DavidPostill Oct 06 '15 at 07:57

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