Photo Recovery

How to Remove Virus from SD card without Formatting?

Written By Sumona Chatterjee
Approved By Rohit Arora
Updated on 12 Oct, 2022
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Summary: This Tutorial explains how to remove virus from SD card without formatting. It discusses both manual and software approaches. It also tells how to detect a virus, how SD Cards are attacked by a virus, and what happens when an SD Card gets infected by a virus. Read on to learn more.

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Picture this. You connect the SD Card with your brother’s laptop to transfer some photos. You performed the transfer process as well as removal process properly to ensure that there is no issue. On the contrary, when you connect it to your Desktop, it produces an error message indicating that the SD Card has become corrupt. To confirm, you tried to access the same on your mobile, but you still cannot open it. To capture the actual problem, you run the anti-virus software and find that it is infected by a virus. You thought of formatting the SD Card but realize that it will remove all the memories.

Worrying what to do NEXT? Wondering how to recover photos from the infected SD Card?

For all those who are looking forward to an alternative for fixing a virus-infected SD card without formatting, this Blog provides a comprehensive solution. Prior to looking into the recovery aspect, let us have a quick overview, what happens when the SD Card gets infected by a virus and how to detect the virus in the SD Card?

How Are Memory Cards Attacked by a Virus?

When connected to a Virus Infected System
By transferring virus infected files to the memory card
Exploring malicious website while using the memory card

What happens when SD Cards get infected by a virus?

The following symptoms occur when a virus infects the SD card.

- Files may turn into hidden state
- Files may get auto removed or erased without a warning
- Creates probability of private information stolen
- SD Card may turn inaccessible
- Can infect the corresponding connected devices
- Slow and sluggish performance
- Missing of files from the SD Card
- When you are unable to read/write anything on your device
- Error generation—Cannot read from the device, while accessing the files
- When you fail to copy the data
- When you see messages indicating memory card is corrupt or memory card error while trying to delete unwanted files
- When you see the error code while accessing it

When you see a prompt message to format the device
When you cannot view data of your device even after detection

First Aid to Remove Virus from SD Card

Handy Manual Fix —CMD

An easy and free recovery solution to fix virus infected memory card.

Steps are as follows:

Plug in virus-infected SD card to the system
Go to Start menu -> type cmd -> Enter
Right-click exe -> type “attrib -h -r -s /s /d drive letter:\*.*”

Stellar

Now, Windows will repair virus infected SD Card. On successful completion, check the state of the card.

This method usually works in in minor cases, but in major case scenarios, it fails! You can also refer to the manual tricks mentioned in this post SD Card Recovery.

Here, the most steadfast solution would be to use a third-party recovery tool!

The third party recovery tool will, however, get back your valuable data but it may not remove the virus from SD card.

Software to Recover Photos from Virus Infected SD card

Under all scenarios like virus infection, when you are unable to manage SD Card using CMD, third-party photo recovery tool works wonders. The reason being, it is software-oriented and free from manual intervention thereby, have lesser risks associated with it.

A recommended, tried, tested, and approved solution is Stellar Photo Recovery Software. This professional recovery solution is specially intended to regain lost photos as well as other multimedia files. This dedicated solution works efficiently in case of corruption, accidental deletion, virus problems, file/directory deletion, software malfunction, or formatting.

How to Recover Files from Virus Infected SD cards without formatting?

Launch Stellar Photo Recovery Software.
Select the location from where you want to recover. Click Scan to start the scanning process
A dialog box of ‘Scanning Completed Successfully!’ displays the scan results – the number of files found and size of the data. In the left pane of the main window, all the recovered data is listed. You can preview them in the right pane.
Note: If you do not see the required photos in the list, opt for Deep Scan option at the bottom.
Click Recover. You can also choose to recover only the selective files – select files that you need, right click, and click Recover.
In the dialog box, specify the location to save the image files. Click Save. All the files get saved at the specified location.

The Recovery process is Complete!

The Bottom line

Losing your memorable or most cherished moments is not less than a nightmare. This situation can arise in anyone’s life and at any point of the time. It can be due to hardware failure, software malfunction, virus attack, and more!

Here, the major concern is how to remove the virus and recover data from it. You can certainly go for the manual approaches but they do not work in all scenarios thereby, choosing a software aided solution becomes a more viable option.

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About The Author

Sumona Chatterjee

Sumona is a tech blogger, avid photographer, & technogeek with vast experience in writing about media file recovery tips and tutorials. She has over 10 years of experience in media file recovery/media file repair technology. She is passionate about Photography, Creative Designing, Music, and Exploring lesser-known destinations.

50 comments

Vladimir says:

January 23, 2023 at 7:12 pm

Hello, good afternoon, I bought a 32gb cd memory, I put it in a phone that I only use for music and the day after I already had it on the phone it was damaged, when I put it in my computer it appears that the cd only it has 1gb and an “abcd.iso” file.
I’ve tried to format it in all ways and it won’t let me, do you have a solution?
First of all, Thanks

Reply
1. Sumona Chatterjee says:
  
  January 25, 2023 at 6:54 am
  
  Hey Vladimir,
  Seems like your SD card got corrupted with a virus and it needs proper formatting. Check out these suggestions from our other article to see the formatting methods you can try to remove the virus from your card.
  
  Reply
Martha says:

December 16, 2022 at 5:10 am

Hi,lm Martha when I put my ad card in a PC it’s say you have to format it and when you format it is not formatting,what could be the problem and how to solve it.

Reply
1. Sumona Chatterjee says:
  
  January 9, 2023 at 4:57 am
  
  Hi Martha,
  There can be many reasons for SD cards won’t format errors. The memory card might be corrupted. Its file system may have turned raw, or your computer doesn’t recognize the SD card.
  Check out this blog for a better understanding.
  
  Reply
PRINCEWILL says:

October 1, 2022 at 7:24 am

I HAVE A TF CARD THAT HAS VIRUS THE FILES IN IT ARE NOT IMPORTANT I JUST TO GET RID OF THE VIRUS IN IT. SO HOW DO I GO?.

Reply
1. Sumona Chatterjee says:
  
  November 16, 2022 at 8:48 am
  
  Hi Princewell,
  If you will check the Blog, you will get the answer. An easy and free recovery solution to fix virus-infected SD cards is using the attrib command using a PC.
  
  Reply
Abdulraheem Kehinde says:

July 12, 2022 at 12:38 pm

Hello, I moved some mp4 files from my Android Phone to my sd card and after some days, some of the videos started freezing at some points whenever I play them. Please what could the problem be and how can I solve the problem?

Reply
1. Sumona Chatterjee says:
  
  July 15, 2022 at 9:34 am
  
  Maybe your videos have gone corrupt due to unsafe transfer or any malware attack. Don’t worry! You can use Stellar Repair for Video to fix the videos to stop freezing.
  
  Reply
Mayy says:

December 15, 2019 at 2:31 am

Hi,Im May. Im about to transfer all the pictures from my camera to pc but i suddenly click the virus, ang when we reformat and recover it 90% of the photos is cannot recover.When we try it to another apps it is the same photo that can recover.Please help me,Im so terrified when all of our pictures is gone.

Reply
1. Sumona Chatterjee says:
  
  December 16, 2019 at 2:42 am
  
  Hi Mary, I would suggest, Firstly you can use authorized antivirus software to scan your pc from removing viruses. Then you can try our software demo version and see the preview of your lost photos. If the preview is available our software recovers your photos. Thanks!
  
  Reply
Ross says:

April 14, 2019 at 2:25 am

I had read your post and try Stellar Photo Recovery software. It works very well for me.

Reply
1. Sumona Chatterjee says:
  
  April 15, 2019 at 2:35 am
  
  Hi Ross, Thanks for choosing our software or Keep reading for next updates!
  
  Reply
Jimmy Bui says:

June 18, 2018 at 10:31 am

I had a same problem on my Windows Phone SD card when I put the SD card in my phone. Its automatically hang only power on/off button works. I fix the issue with the help of your given handy manual fix from cmd. I highly recommend this article!

Reply
1. Sumona Chatterjee says:
  
  June 20, 2018 at 2:42 am
  
  Hi, Jimmy, Thanks for your appreciation!
  
  Reply
NIKITA ABABIY says:

May 10, 2018 at 10:19 am

I was transferring a video clip from my phone to computer via USB cable. When I open a video clip on a media player, VLC media crashed. I don’t want to format my SD card because the data is important. With the help of your blog, I recover my data from SD card. Thank you very much!

Reply
1. Sumona Chatterjee says:
  
  May 16, 2018 at 6:03 am
  
  Thank to You! For reading our blog and sharing feedback with us.
  
  Reply
Mitch says:

April 28, 2018 at 8:13 pm

Hello,

I have a Android S8 phone which seems to loose battery fast and gives an error message of corrupt SD card when surfing the internet. This is the same SD card that was in my last phone. Is there a way to get a virus scan or do I need to get a new SD card? Transferring pics to my computer is not working anymore.

Reply
1. Sumona Chatterjee says:
  
  May 3, 2018 at 3:38 am
  
  Hello Mitch,
  
  Thanks for contacting Stellar Data Recovery
  
  If the same SD card is running in other system that means the SD card is not corrupt. Otherwise, SD might have got corrupt and you can try the manual fixes. Please follow these steps:
  
  1. Insert the affected card into a card reader and connect it to your system
  2. Try chkdsk command
  3. Type “chkdsk” followed by drive letter, colon and /f at the command prompt:Chkdsk /f
  4. Follow the subsequent message prompts. Lastly, check your assigned drive letter to your SD card to verify if the files are recovered or not.
  
  Reply
  1. joyce says:
    
    July 31, 2018 at 11:08 am
    
    Hi
    i would like to say that my sd card cant read is there a virus in this sd card because i try so many times but it cant read….please give me atip or what to do that cant cause a money….please help me.
  2. Sumona Chatterjee says:
    
    August 7, 2018 at 3:46 am
    
    Hi Joyce, Please follows these steps as discussed on our blog or you can scan your SD card through an antivirus on your computer.
ABHIMANYU says:

April 10, 2018 at 7:05 am

Hi there!
Madam,
could you help me please?
I got a question from you is I have two android phones and there are problems in replacing them to each other. I wish to use a new one and want to convey the older one to my relative but, when I inserted my latter mobile memory card to new one it isn’t running in it though both the memory cards are running into my older cell phones.
Kindly help me miss as I might use my memory card to new phone.

Reply
1. Sumona Chatterjee says:
  
  April 13, 2018 at 2:49 am
  
  Hello Abhimanyu,
  
  There is a problem in your memory card which is not compatible with your new phone. Try to move sd card data and connect to your PC/laptop and then transfer your data to your phone through USB cable.
  
  Reply