I wouldn't worry too much about USB drives coming with malware if you buy from a reputable vendor (e.g. no random Amazon store. I try to buy stuff sold directly by Amazon). For Windows boot media, ...
You now have to back up your USB drive before you try to recover anything. You can do this in Disk Drill. Go to Extra Tools, ...
I have this XP SP2 Pro machine which always exhibit this behavior. Whenever I connect any external USB drive or flash drives, the computer freezes for a few minutes and after a while it says that the ...