Had a virus, now I'm scared of my backups being infected

[anxious]

So I had my laptop wiped to get rid of a virus a couple days ago and now I want to put my stuff back. It's not all my stuff, I only backed up the most important things such as my school stuff and pictures and stuff for my games that I didn't want to lose. Everything else, I didn't really care about and let get wiped. They're all in .rar's on MediaFire. None are programs, just like docs and pngs and package files really. 

 

All that being said, I'm scared of putting them back and getting reinfected. I know I can scan the files with my anti virus but I'm scared that that won't be enough and any potential viruses will bypass it somehow. Any ideas of how I can protect myself? 

[AdvancedSetup]

If they are in RAR files they cannot infect in that format. It's not an executable file type.

Save the files down to a new folder on your local hard drive. Then upload them (as long as they're not private) https://virustotal.com and have them scan the files for any type of infections.

If there are private documents or other items you would not want to be seen in public then do not upload to VirusTotal as they will become public.

 

[anxious]

Thank you, I will do that. But, question, how reliable are the results? What if a virus is blocking itself from being detected?

Also, any ideas of what I should do for more private documents ? 

[AdvancedSetup]

Not a lot you can do for private documents except scan with local Windows Defender and Malwarebytes

There are 60+ antivirus engines. If they don't detect something it's pretty certain it's safe.

 

[anxious]

Okay, I'll try those. Thank you so much :)

[AdvancedSetup]

You're quite welcome

Take care and stay safe out there

 

[AdvancedSetup]

Glad we could help.

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