when malicious stuff is missed) detection rates of even the best anti-malware programs against modern threats (even Norton will tell you how often traditional anti-malware scanning doesn't catch malware these days). This situation has a kind of an implied premise here that we ought to pay attention to: if that USB stick was/is contaminated by something-or especially, by somethings, in the multiple-can you really be very confident that even using multiple anti-malware programs will detect & remove every bit of nastiness that may be on there? Considering what we know in general about the false negative (ie.
Instead, let me address the question of whether it's actually worth trying to do that. run a live distro of a different operating system type than was on your friend's infected computer, preferably after physically removing or disconnecting the normal writable storage disks/drives inside your machine, if practical). The answers already in provide some good technical advice on how to go about doing what you propose while minimizing risk to whatever machine you would be using to attempt the sanitization (ie.
