virus on a memory card

At some point you will have to plug it into a computer and the anti virus on that will treat your memory card as another disk and scan it for viruses if you let it.

I bought a flash drive a few years ago and it was nothing but problems. I put things on it and they vanished. Then some came back. Others vanished but were in the memory left. It did not have a virus on it. It was just Chinese junk.

You should always copy pictures to another place when taken so you do not lose them if the card has a virus on, it becomes corrupted or is lost. So many people have lost treasured holiday photos because they have not done this.

Ta for taking the time to reply Cyberia. I wish that there was something small to back up my pictures to. When I go on trips, I tend to be away for a few months at a time, and I'm always so conscious of having to carry too much stuff around. I have a wonderful external hard drive, but I'm afraid of someone nicking it, so I leave it at home. The same goes for bringing a laptop with me.

I wish that there was a device that I could plug a memory card into to (something like a decent flashdrive), and then have everything copied to another sort of half way decent flashdrive. It would have to be something small and light though. I wish there was a way of plugging two memory cards into the same camera, and then having the photos/videos saved to both memory cards.

If you know of anything that fits along those lines, can you let me know please? As a general rule, I avoid anything made in China.

In the meantime, are you saying that if I run something like an avg scan on my memory card, then there's no way that it can pass any viruses to this pc?

I used something similar to this on a trip last year

http://dx.com/p/hdmi-sd-tf-usb-mini-usb-card-reader-adapter-for-apple-iphone-ipad-ipod-129046?utm_source=GoogleShoppingUK&utm_medium=CPC&utm_content=129046&utm_campaign=223&tc=GBP&gclid=CMPp4NzsmLkCFQTMtAodtH4ArQ

I plugged in the memory card from the camera into one end of it, and the other end went into the back of my iPad, then I did a bulk copy from memory card to iPad memory. It would probably work with any tablet or a smartphone, and perhaps even other things (iPod?).

Very hard to avoid anything made in China.

You'll need to put the card into a computer and get the virus scanner to scan it. Don't worry most virus scanners these day detect a virus is trying to copy itself to the PC and quarantines it.

However in my opinion it sounds like the card could just be corrupted, ie the card was removed while still being written to or something like that.

I've used this app and while its not the easiest to use, it works well and finds files that have been deleted and its free. Photorec

There is nothing to be so much afraid of. Yes, you must take some precaution, so that you can protect your device from any kind of infection. But you can suddenly perform antivirus scan on your memory card. Get a popular antivirus like Norton, kaspersky, Immunet Plus Antivirus, Avast, Avira etc and perform a complete scan of your memory card. Virus will be removed easily. And if you lose images in the process, then get a memory card recovery tool and you will get back your images, videos easily. Recovery software comes in free and paid versions; you can use anyone that you like.

Thanks again everyone. I really appreciate your replies.

I've scanned the memory card thrice (Microsoft security essentials, AVG free and McAfee). Each time, it comes up that no threats are found and that all is OK.

But yet, each time the folder comes up as being empty. I've gone into the properties, and as best as I can tell, there are no hidden files. I've ticked the box that says to "show hidden files".

Whenever I put the memory card back in the camera, it tells me that there are 5 pictures remaining to be taken. If I take those 5 pictures, they are visible on the camera and they are also visible if I put the memory card in a pc/laptop.

The fact that the camera tells me that there are 5 pictures left to be taken on the memory card, tells me that the camera "thinks" that the other space on the memory card is already taken up with something. So, I tell myself that "something" (a virus???) is fooling the camera into thinking that the rest of the memory card already has something saved to it. But, what is that "something"? Some sort of virus I assume. That "something" seems to be telling the camera that the memory space is taken up, and the camera has been fooled into believeing it. However, when in a pc, the memory card is coming up as being empty. If I take the 5 pictures, they will show up in a pc.

When everything is OK, there are 3 folders that normally come up when I right click on the memory card's icon when I right click on the "computer" icon. Those 3 folders are "DCIM", "PRIVATE" and "MISC". I recognise those 3 folders, I know that they are and there's no problem there.

However, right now, there are 7 folders displayed. They are the 3 mentioned above, plus: ".fseventsd", ".Trashes", "autorun.inf" and ".-.Trashes. I don't recognise those 4 folders. Interestingly enough, they are "greyed" out, ie, they're not fully visible, it's like they're shaded or something. I can see that these 4 folders were created at the exact moment in time when the problem occured. However, the scans are not picking up these folders as a threat.

I'm tempted just to remove the folders to the recycle bin, but I suspect that the real problem is elsewhere. When I right click on these 4 folders, they're coming up as empty. I suspect that these folders may be some kind of shortcut, but I certainly wouldn't swear to it. However, the fact that these folders are "greyed" out makes me think that there's nothing to them, and they don't mean anything. It's what caused those folders to appear that is the problem, whatever that is.

Anyway, if anyone has actually read all of this, I thank you very much. I know that I can get this fixed for a sum of money, should I decide to do that. However, I want to learn what's caused this (this didn't happen because I pulled a memory card out of an sd slot without signing off properly), and how to correct it myself. I travel quite a bit, and ideally, I'd prefer how to fix these problems myself. Hence my desire to try and sort this out myself.

HELP.

I had virus infected my memory card twice. In both cases, I carefully copied only photos from the card onto a cd/usb drive, then reformat the card to eliminate the virus.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/youngadventure/sets/72157635169261852/

Cheers getyoung;

I thought about that. However, when I open the folders (in both the camera and on a pc), I see nothing. I'm tempted just to copy the whole folder anyway, just to see what'll happen. However, I'm afraid that I might accidentally copy the virus (or whatever the problem in) as well.

I'm also tempted to format the memory card anyway, and then (hopefully) recover the pictures using some software. It's a bit of a risk though.

Can you tell if the card is being filled with photos even though you can't see them?

When I had my first virus infection of my card, I thought I lost everything because I couldn't see a thing. I don't recall how I end up being able to see and retrieve the photos but I did. I remembered going to a computer store in Pokhara for help. Unfortunately the owner wasn't good at this and his expert friend was out of town. But he noticed that my card was quite full, so the pictures were still on the card--just the virus blocked them from view.

If this is your case, your pictures are likely still there as long as you don't reformat the card. You may a specialist to help you, or somehow tinkle with it like I did and eventually found a way to get the photos out.