Is there a way to protect a USB flash drive from virus?

My daughter's school computer lab is seemingly infected with some PC virus but their school IT folks seem to be unable to clean them and with all the young kids using USB flash drives they brought these viruses home when they plug the flash drive into our home computer but luckily since we are using Mac at home and I have ClamXav installed it detected the virus immediately. So we are kind of safe but I am getting tired of removing this same virus every week using UNIX command in a terminal mode, as it's locked and can only removed using the sudo command (taught by some people). My questions are:
1. Is there any way to protect a USB flash drive from virus infection (it's a window PC virus)
2. is there a way or suggestion on how to stop these apart from dis-infecting the whole school computers? The problems are that these young kids are not aware of those viruses in their USB flash drives and their teachers are just too ignorant about it!
Thanks for any suggestions and help

I'd still invest in your case into Mac protection against passing along malware.
Take a look at Intego AV for one for the Mac and for dual-protection.
http://www.intego.com
Whatever you are finding is 'dormant' I assume, but that doesn't mean it can't become active or passed along either. And there are some 'man in the middle' spyware and malware, some which target online home banking (some people run their home banking from a virtual OS that is used for that purpose only, I always wished Mac OS X could be run in a VM mode as well).
The IT folks sound like they need... do their jobs properly and better.
I don't care how young they are, or the staff's ignorance. Time for education is now.
Download and install Microsoft Security Essentials in Windows and follow guidelines. And there are tons of FAQs, guidelines and articles on the subject.
http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/
http://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/
Nearly six months after Apple added a malware blocker to Mac OS X (Snow Leopard), the feature appears to be collecting cobwebs.
Apple has not added any anti-malware signature updates to the XProtect.plist file that launched with antidotes for OSX.RSPlug.A and OSX.Iservice, two known Trojan horse programs targeting Mac OS X users.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/index.php?cat=20&submit=view

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Ok, Lots of different advice here, let's see if I can explain it all together, and clear up a few bits...
I'll try to explain why I'm saying what I am, it doesn't matter if you don't follow it all, commands are below.
You are on the right lines here, but a few things missing. Firstly, to mount the USB stick you are using the correct command, but the locations are a problem. The command is "mount -t type what/to/mount where/to/mount". You can find out more about the mount command with "mount --help" or "man mount"
You have correctly identified type as vfat - this means the pen is formated as FAT.
To find out what to mount, you can check /var/log/messages.log, the second command you posted searches trough that file and prints out lines including the phrase SCSI, and the result tells you that a usb storage device had been attached as sdb, so the correct device is /dev/sdb1. Storage devices are named sda sdb sdc etc in the order they are attached, and the numbers refer to the partitions on the disk.
You can mount it anywhere you want, as any existing directory, but the one you tried to use /mnt/usbstick doesn't exist, so create it, using mkdir.
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Finally, there are also a number of tools like HAL which can be used to automate the process.
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Hope this helps
Jack

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It's a sad day for me, when I start to think Google may still have the upperhand on 7" tablets, even after the iPad mini is released. I might even wait for the Second generation (if it exists!) - just because I for some reason never like first generation things from Apple.
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jrburrows wrote:
Ok, fair enough. But since Job's death - Apple's control on leaks has been terrible. I got the new iPhone, and I like it - but it hasn't made nearly as big as an impression as previous ones. Because of the vast ammount of leaks. With the iPad mini leaks, it's 99% sure to come out next week.
Apple uses many manufacturers and it's massive also websites prefer to report on Apple whether true or false because it brings more hits.
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I received our wedding photos on a USB flash drive from our professional photographer. I am trying to get these photos on my ipad 4.

I have enough room on my ipad for all 600 photos.
I have tried to sync the photos through iTunes by choosing the USB drive on my computer. The folder appears empty.
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I am happy to assist you in this process and this method of helping you today will not involve you using your Camera Connection Kit from Apple.
This method of downloading images onto the iPad requires the following items:
The USB
A computer/Mac with a USB Port
The iPad
iTunes (preferably iTunes 11, but it won't make much difference if you have iTunes 10)
Before we start I have based this resolution on the basis that you use:
iPad 4 with iOS 7.0.0 or better
iTunes 10 or better
Mac OS X Mountain Lion or better or Windows 7 or better
Here are my steps to resolve your issue:
Insert the USB drive into your computer and then go into the folder in windows explorer or finder where the images are saved on your USB.
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Remove your USB stick from your computer
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Press sync.
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Your images should be located there.
If this resolution does not work, you have three other options
Try the solution provided by the gentleman above using the Camera Connection Kit
Call Apple - American number is 1800-MY-APPLE (1800-692-7753) and go through to AppleCare for iPad
Take the USB and iPad to your closest Apple Store and get a Genius to look and possibly fix the problem.
Many Thanks for your question and allowing me the time to possibly resolve your issue. I hope to hear from you soon regarding this issue.
iBenjamin
<Email Edited by Host>

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