Getting rid of U3 malware on my memory stick
Every time I put my Sandisk Titanium cruzer in a Windows computer, I have to wait about 30 seconds for some U3 software to load. Most tied-down PC’s like the ones at uni do not allow this program to run correctly and so it is completely useless.
If there was a way to turn this off or easily uninstall it, I wouldn’t mind, but there isn’t. As far as I am concerned this U3 software is malware. It installs itself without my consent, and there is no designated way to remove or deactivate it.
The problem stems from the flash drive setting itself up as both a removable flash drive, and an extra fake CD drive. This fake read-only CD drive is a small partition on the memory stick, and contains the autorun files for the U3 system.
After reading a number of forums on the net, I found an exe that reformats the whole drive, steamrollering the CD partition. After downloading and running it, I now have a 6MB larger stick and a memory stick that works – All I wanted in the first place.
Those extra 6MB (and another 300 MB) have been nicely filled by Portable Apps – A clever set of programs that allows me to run Firefox, OpenOffice, Thunderbird etc straight from my memory stick on most windows computers. It even works on the uni computers, despite the removable drive not being fully mounted due to a lack of administrator privileges.
