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How do I remove a virus from a memory card?

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Hello Leo,
Thanks so much for the post of the question and answer! :)
I do have a card reader on my computer. I do have the option to reformat it. I also saw that I forgot to list how I know I am not infected by it right now, I have a wonderful solution on my system called deepfreeze. what it does is freeze the whole system in one state and reboots, then I can do whatever I like and if I see something like a virus I restart and get rid of it with a reboot. unfortunately without it running 24/7 I get attacked and have had to reformat once every 2-3 weeks for the last few months, even with running the anti virus firewall router anti spyware.. just visiting sites like youtube and AOL.
The tools I use to get rid of viruses are as follows- avast anti virus, avg, super anti spyware, smitrem, smitfraud fix, kill process, spybot s&d ccleaner, coffee cup privacy cleaner, deepfreeze... none running at the same time i.e. virus shields or firewall's. some how this virus got onto my system at one point and put itself on my camera disc before I reformatted my hard drive.
and with reformatting the whole camera drive I got some pictures I just cant replace. so im wondering if there's a way to find out which files are infected or if they all are
I believe I know who this particular virus is from an old ex friend, is there any way to maybe decode it enough to get it to an anti virus company so they can fix it with they're software?
Thanks so much Leo !! :)
Patrick

Posted by: poster at June 12, 2008 7:49 PM

Patrick: copy your pictures to your computer, then burn them to a CD. Take the CD to a friend's PC to make sure you have the pictures. Then reformat the memory card on the camera, as Leo told you to do.

Also: pick one anti-virus program and live with it.

Posted by: Gord Campbell at June 17, 2008 11:58 AM

Gord, But what if this particular virus embeds itself into a picture (jpeg, etc.)? Wouldn't it spread to the friend's computer?

Posted by: Linda at June 17, 2008 2:12 PM

Leo, there's something he needs to do before he sticks the card into his computer to reformat it: TURN OFF AUTORUN! That's presumably how the virus spreads in the first place, with an "autorun" program on the card. You did discuss this in this article, but maybe you need a separate one on how to turn autorun off, and why it's such a good idea....

Posted by: Randy at June 18, 2008 9:55 AM

*grumble* -- you have your MT set to kill off links, I guess. The "this article" in my comment linked here:
http://ask-leo.com/is_it_safe_to_connect_a_drive_infected_with_a_virus_to_my_computer.html

Posted by: Randy at June 18, 2008 9:57 AM

The way i see it is that some viruses are easily destroyed in safe mode. If you can load everything on your card onto your local hardrive and switch to safe mode. You also need to find the name of the virus you can, if you can find information about the virus; its behaviour etc, the easier you can get rid of it. I would also like to point out that formatting a hardrive every now and then kind of shortens its life span.

Posted by: Martin Nyama at June 20, 2008 5:16 AM

The easiest way to remove these kinda viruses is to download live one care.
go to http://www.killviruses.net to delete these virsues. It has the free trail on the website.

Posted by: killviruses at June 26, 2008 2:55 PM

I have got a canon camera with 4 gb memory card.
Now if i put the card in a card reader it is showing the icon down on the desktop, but not listing the drive in My Computer or showing any contents. Is it affected by a virus? If so how to remove it?

Posted by: Divya at September 5, 2008 4:18 AM

Its better you can use virus removal software from this site http://www.virusremovalsoftwares.org/

Posted by: virus remover at October 28, 2008 3:11 PM

I have brought new 4GB Micro sd card for my mobile phone , but the card has now got virus in it , if i format also it is not going out , what should i do.
How can i remove virus from it.

How do you know it has a virus? Formatting an SD card will remove everything, including any viruses. You could be getting re-infected if your machine also has that virus, though.
- Leo
05-Nov-2008

Posted by: shiv at November 4, 2008 10:54 PM
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