I've found a flash drive

Geoffo_M

I found it lying on the pavement this morning. It is a Sandisk Cruzer Titanium 8gb. I have never used a flash drive before, and I was thinking of looking at the contents to see if I can trace the owner. But now I am wondering if there are any dangers in that it might install software on my PC that I will have problems later removing. I have XP and a USB port. Are there likely to be any dangers?

posted_2

Not if you have a good virus scanner - hold down shift as you insert it. Nice to see someone being honest.

bingo_bango

Agreed. Right click on the drive in 'My Computer' and select scan with ****** (where ***** is your antivirus product). Should be safe if nothing found.

M4RKM

it'll only have some government secrets on, that you can sell to a newspaper..

really worthless most probably..

Geoffo_M

posted wrote: »

Not if you have a good virus scanner - hold down shift as you insert it. Nice to see someone being honest.

Right, so holding down the shift as I insert would not load the flash drive? And would 'My Computer' recognise the drive if it hadn't been loaded? I have an old Win98 PC which the flash drive isn't compatible with - but I could try your suggestion on there as it has a USB and Avast.

thomas01155

Holding down shift stops it from auto running in case its infected. You hold down shift and keep holding it down while your inserting the usb.

Unstoppable_2

thomas01155 wrote: »

Holding down shift stops it from auto running in case its infected. You hold down shift and keep holding it down while your inserting the usb.

won't stop them being infected by a Word or Exel macro virus when they open a document..