Expert: Carolyn Meinel - 6/15/2005

Question
Hi carolyn!

i recently bought an ipod and all my mp3 files are located in my brother's computer.  he said that the computer has viruses on it... so this is my question:
if i were to burn the mp3s onto a cd and upload it onto my friend's computer, would it infect my friend's computer? and if i were to transfer the files onto my ipod, will it effect my ipod? thank you for taking the time to answer my questions!
teresa

Answer
There are no viruses or worms that can infect mp3 files.

The one kind of infection that could be transmitted on a disk from your brother's computer that contains only mp3 files would be a boot sector virus. Simply burning a CD on a computer infected with a boot sector virus could get the CD infected, and then the CD could infect your computer. However, boot sector viruses are rare nowadays and they aren't known to infect ipods.

If you scan your brother's computer first with an antivirus program, it should eliminate any possible boot sector virus and then you won't have to worry about your own computer getting inmfected.

If you need an antivirus program,you can use the free version of Avast! antivirus, from http://www.avast.com/eng/down_home.html or AVG, free from http://free.grisoft.com/doc/Get+AVG+FREE/lng/us/tpl/v5