virus - Write-protected USB Spotlight V-100 hidden files (don't have a Mac)

07
2014-07
  • Dominique

    I am having trouble with my USB. I have used it for a few months without any trouble, but a couple of days ago it started saying that I cannot delete anything or save any new files because it is write-protected. I tried many of the suggestions listed on the Internet: adding a new folder in the registry called "StorageDevicePolicies" with WriteProtect set to 0, I tried formatting it both with the standard format tool and from the cmd (to no avail), and my USB does not have a switch on the side to lock or unlock the device.

    Avast scan revealed no viruses. However, when I looked at the hidden folders in my USB I noticed that it is full of files in a directory called "Spotlight-V-100\Store-V2" followed by a string of numbers. From what I have seen, Spotlight directories are used for indexing in Mac devices, but I am using Windows and I haven't plugged my usb in a Mac device.

    I am a little worried because I have seen a couple of people in other forums suggest it is a Trojan virus, but I haven't read anything else about it (besides, Avast is not picking it up.)

    Any suggestions about what I should do to return my USB to normal?

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    Related Question

    osx - How disable mac snow leopard creating .Spotlight-V100 and .Trash folders in USB Flash Drivers?
  • Questioner

    Everytime I put a USB Flash Driver the Mac OS X creates 2 folders .Trash and .Spotlight-V100. Is it possible to disable this operation?


    • Related Answers
  • Benjamin Schollnick

    Well, I know that there is utilities to do this, but I can't recall the name right now...

    But my Google-Foo, is working today...

    > cd /Volumes/your\ target\ volume sudo
> touch .metadata_never_index

    This hidden file is recognized by both Leopard and Snow Leopard (Possibly Tiger too).

    But it will not stop a spotlight index that is currently being created... So add the drive to the privacy panel of Spotlight, add the file, and then remove it from the privacy panel.

    Doing so will erase the contents of the spotlight index on the drive in question, prevent it from being re-indexed...

  • Mark Johnson

    Not for any arbitrary USB flash drive you might insert (at least I don't think so). However, for a particular USB flash drive, check this out.

    Executive summary: Create two files, named .metadata_never_index and .Trash in the root directory of the USB flash drive. You'll have to manually remove any existing Spotlight or Trash folders that already exist.

  • James Polley

    No.

    mdutil can turn off spotlight on network drives, but there's no way to stop it indexing removable drives (short of inserting the drive and then telling spotlight not to index that drive of course - but you're looking for something to stop it happening for all removable drives, always, not just the drives where you've manually turned it off)

    For trash, there are similar workarounds to make OS X not actually use the trash folder - eg, create a file called .Trash so that OS X can't later create the directory called .Trash. Again, this only works for devices you've manually exempted, it isn't a blanket ban on OSX doing this on all deices.