Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.

Lately memory cards, such as used in digital cameras, have been used as "carriers" of malware. The card is easy to clean. Your system may not be.

I have been having problems with hackers and viruses and the like and have one right now that avast will not find and superantispyware wont find either. I've tried in the past a range of virus scanners for it but to no success. its on a camera disc little SD memory card, and tries to spread to my hard drive and any other media anytime i connect it.

I was wondering what steps you would take in my position?

There are a few things I would do, and they start out pretty simply.

With any disk that isn't your system disk you have a wonderful opportunity to get rid of viruses and spyware fairly quickly and easily.

Reformat the card.

Presumably you have a card reader, and presumably that card, when inserted, appears as another drive on your computer.

Reformat it. Remove any data you want to keep first, but then reformat it.

"Reformat it. Remove any data you want to keep first, but then reformat it."

That will erase everything from the card. Data. Viruses. Spyware. Everything.

If for some reason you cannot reformat it on your computer, then once again, copy off the data you want to keep, and use your camera or other device to reformat it; most have this as an option.

We talk about "reformat and reinstall" as a last resort, or in some cases the only resort, to curing an infection on your system drive. The problem is that while this does eradicate the infection by erasing everything, it erased everything, including your operating system. You now have to reinstall, or perhaps recover from a backup image that was created prior to the infection.

With other drives we have a little bit more flexibility. It still really is "reformat and reinstall", but typically the "reinstall" part is significantly less of a problem. You can copy all the pictures off of your camera's SD card, and reformat it without much effort. Even other drives, such as external hard drives or internal hard disks, can be treated the same way, though in these cases the problem is often where to copy the data, and making sure you also don't copy the infection.

So that gets it off of your SD card.

But I'm still concerned.

Most viruses insert themselves into your system. Specifically, they copy files onto your system drive, and insert themselves in various system-related places like the registry. It's unclear how you've been clearing this off once you've determined you've become infected. In fact, it sounds like the tools you have at hand haven't been able to clean it from your SD card, so I don't see how your system isn't still infected as well.

It's quite possible, then, that even after formatting your SD card, your still-infected system might not put the infection right back.

Unfortunately I don't have a silver bullet for this situation. Not all anti-malware programs catch every possible malware. I would, in your shoes, run a variety of those tools, both anti-virus and anti-spyware, to attempt to clear off the infection.

If that still doesn't work, then you're faced with only one alternative.

Backup, reformat your system drive and reinstall everything.

Article C3413 - June 11, 2008

Leo Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed. After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.

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Recent Comments
32 Comments

i try to reformat my memory card but still there is file that cannot be erase ..how can i erase it??

Posted by: jean at October 15, 2011 10:08 PM

@Jean
If you are using the format command, Right clicking on the memory card in Windows Explorer and choosing format you should be able to format the card without any problems. If you make sure that the write protect tab is in the unlock position, you should be able to format the card unless there is physical damage to the card or card slot.
Since you mention that a file is unable to be erased, I'll assume you are deleting files and not actually formatting the card. There is a free utility that allows you to delete locked files called Unlocker Assistant which works in the vast majority of cases.

http://www.techspot.com/downloads/1029-unlocker.html

Posted by: Mark J at October 16, 2011 1:25 AM

I have an 8GB memory card.I try again and again to formate this card but all in vain.my pc could not found the drive.....

Posted by: Mohsin at October 19, 2011 6:42 AM

I know i can reformat my SD card but how do i get my pictures off first? I know they are there but i cant see them and access them? Norton virus scan scans them but I can't find them. What can i do?

Perhaps try Recuva.
Leo
03-Jan-2012
Posted by: Greg at January 2, 2012 8:04 PM

i read your suggestion can i get my file in my memory card if it had a virus.

Posted by: lalaine salvador at March 1, 2012 4:59 AM
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