XDA Virus?

[yarx]

My SD Card has just become corrupt. It looks like it was overwritten by something, all the file and folder names have been turned into unreadable characters. I haven't been able to access any data on it, I could only reformat the card to use it again.

Is this a sign of a virus attack, or just something that happens with SD cards?

[Carlos]

It's not a virus, since there are no PPC viruses. Not sure what happened, a few people have reported card corruption in certain situations. See other threads on that here.

[XDABob]

I couldn't say one way or the other if your problem is caused by a virus, but I would be interested to know why Carlos thinks there are no PPC viruses?!

From my limited knowledge (at the moment) of the PPC, the underlying OS is very close to that of PC based Microsoft OS's. I thought PPC runs things like Java and there are certainly Java based viruses.

I would be interested in other peoples thoughts on this, and in addition, can anyone recommend any particular Antivirus software for the XDA (free or not so free).

[Rudegar]

ppc 2002 dont support java nativly

a file virus would be possible

a mail or www virus depend on how the rigths of outlook ppc and pocketIE are compared to windoze's

[Carlos]

why Carlos thinks there are no PPC viruses?
Because there simply aren't any. Never have been, but eventually I'm sure there will be. Yes, it is possible to do, but hasn't been done. Won't be quite as easy as a Windows virus.

[Nossie]

I think I have a norton antivirus for ppc somewhere... I never got around to installing it because of the lack of need..

but I'm almost positive it was symantec...

I dont know how much use it will be... if what Carlos says is true then any virus program is slow as hell looking for virii without virus signatures am I not correct?

and without viruses... you dont have virus signatures (obviously)


my 2 cents anyways :P

[Carlos]

Yup, there are anti-virus programs for the PPC, which is a huge joke on the public, since there are no viruses. :roll: Scumbag companies just trying to get their foot in the door by having you install something that at best, does nothing, but more likely just eats up resources for nothing.

[ntabikha]

i use PCCILLIN for ppc, wich never found anything, and i DO download alot on my xda.

they seem to update the pattern file every few days, dunno for what tho.

[Nossie]

so if they update the pattern file every so often then surely that must mean that these viruses do exist?

I've never heard of one..

maybe they are lab viruses? theoretical viruses?

The thought did cross my mind when I saw the software

Maybe the pattern files contain code to find competitors anti virus proggies and exterminate them on the fly ;)

[Nossie]

Going back on track,

I did experience card corruption like that before....

One time my ppc reset by itself and I dashed to grab the card out the slot before it formated (SD card erasure issue on ppc2k3) I put it back in to find only half my folders existed and what was left was total gobbledegook with ASCII chars as folder names etc...

[ronin]

Do a search on SD Card Erasures. The problem lies in WM2003 PPC PE handling of the SD card. It reformats the cards when you switch themes or add sounds schemes to the PPC PE.

[Carlos]

I've done that, many times, and don't have card problems.

Removing a card during a reset or other operation where the card is accessed would very likely lead to problems.

[Nossie]

I've done that, many times, and don't have card problems..

done what? heh

personaly I think the phone had gone halfway through its dirty dead when I ejected the card and thats why I ended up with a corrupt one instead of a formated one...

but then I do have erasure issues

So I can truthfuly say that I know why my card became corrupted in the first place... sorry if I suggested it was a new issue.

[Carlos]

Sorry, I mean I've got sounds and themes that I use, and don't have card issues.