Member Avatar for Member #1002324

whenever I save any word, html or pdf document in my USB it is converted into a document having different alphabets. I have format my USB but it was not resolved. I have also scan it but no virus was found in it. I cannot understand why it is happening and how can I resolve this problem?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by faroukmuhammad

Dani AI

Generated

The pattern reported by — English documents that sometimes open as “different alphabets,” with PDFs/PPTs failing and the problem following the same USB across multiple PCs — most strongly fits a failing or counterfeit flash drive (partial writes, bad cells or fake capacity) rather than a simple encoding setting. and were correct to flag malware as a possibility, and ’s observation about capacity-bound corruption is relevant. Below is a short, practical diagnostic and recovery plan that does not repeat earlier suggestions.

Immediate halt and image
Stop writing to the stick to avoid further damage. Make a raw bit-for-bit image of the whole device before any repair attempts (this preserves what remains and lets recovery tools work against the image). On Linux/macOS:

sudo dd if=/dev/sdX of=./usb_image.img bs=4M conv=sync status=progress

Identify the correct /dev/sdX first — a wrong device will overwrite a disk.

Detect hardware/fake-capacity faults
Use H2testw (Windows) or F3 (Linux/macOS) to verify real capacity and to expose wrapped/written sectors. A failing result points to hardware/counterfeit problems rather than file-format mismatch.

Quick header check and recovery options
Inspect a damaged file’s first bytes with a hex viewer to see if headers are intact (%PDF for PDF, PK.. for DOCX). If headers are gone or truncated, files were partially overwritten. Work from the image and try file-carving tools such as PhotoRec/TestDisk or commercial tools (R-Studio) rather than repairing the original stick. For filesystem errors, run checks only on the image (chkdsk /r on a copied image) to avoid further writes to the device.

If tests show hardware or fake-capacity failure, replace the stick and treat it as unreliable for important data. For critical files that cannot be recovered with tools, consult a professional data-recovery service.

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All 9 Replies

Member Avatar for BigPaw

The documents you are writing, are they in English, or a different language?

What programs are you using to write these documents? Is it just Microsoft Office 2010?

When you say USB, are you referring to a USB memory stick (Pendrive), or an external Hard drive connected using USB?

Member Avatar for Member #1002324

These are in English. I have used Microsost Office 2010 and notepad ++ to write these documents. I am referring to a USB memory stick.

Member Avatar for BigPaw

Does this happen if you save the file to your Hard Drive and then copy it to your USB memory stick? Could you try this as an experiment, please? It is quite a good practice to do it this way in future, but this is only a recommendation.

Can you format this Memory Stick?

Member Avatar for rubberman

As far as I know, the only way this can happen is if there is some software running on your system that takes data stored to the USB/thumb drive and converts it on the fly before it is physically written to the device. This sounds very much like a virus to me. What AV scanners have you used to check your system?

Member Avatar for Member #1002324

Yes, I can format this memory stick and I have formatted it many times. I am using avast antivirus but no virus is detected. I format it from my university computer and save documents in it. After sometime when I inserted USB flash again some of the documents were damaged.So on whichever computer I insert it same thing happens and only with my USB flash.

Member Avatar for BigPaw

Can you describe how you are using it, please? You write a document on the University Computer, and then you save that document directly to the memory stick? Do you wait until the document has finished being saved before removing the memory stick?

When you have saved the document, what do you do next?

Member Avatar for extr3mex

Sounds like a virus. Please do the follwing:

  1. Format the USB and safely remove it.
  2. Plug in the USB in any of your friends laptop which has its antivirus updated.
  3. Safely remove it, plug it back into your friends laptop and check if you are able to read it?
  4. Now, plug the USB in your computer and check if its showing another language. If it does, then its probable that your PC is infected with a Virus. Either install a good Anti Virus Software and update it or reinstall your OS.
Edited by extr3mex
Member Avatar for Member #1002324

I do not save my documents directly in USB stick. I save them in hard drive before. Not all my documents are damaged but some of them are damaged. Different language is shown when these are in Word. But when these are of pdf or powerpoint these cannot be opened. Sometimes Word or Powerpoint documents are not damaged. That's why I m confused its due to virus or something else....

Edited by Member #1002324
Member Avatar for faroukmuhammad

I once had a pen drive that behabes this way, it capacity is 1GB but then I notice my files get corrupted if they exceed 100MB only. So I had to buy another one.

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