Mar042011

How can I protect my external hard drive from malware infections?

S A Raj asks:

Please advise how to use safely external hard disk without getting virus infection when we connect to other computers.


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  • Anonymous March 5, 2011

    Since there is no operating system on it, If you wish to no more write on the external hard drive then you can make it ” Read only” mode. This should stop any malware from writing to the drive when its inserted. or a reactive scan

    you can use portable clamwin
    http://www.clamwin.com/content/view/118/89/

    if you connect your external hard drive into another pc, then this pc must have a security soft and also usb antimalware programs already installed and uptodate.

  • Mike March 5, 2011

    Unless your external Hard Drive offers hardware sided write protection via a switch or jumper it will be a bit difficult.

    Any and all Software sided write protection is per System. For example you could set read-only using diskpart within a Windows commandline but if you plug the drive into another System it will still be write-enabled.

    There are two workarounds:
    - using a Software write blocker on every System before you plugin the drive
    - using a Hardware write blocker (an adapter which is very expensive)

    This is a simple USB Write Blocker, but I haven’t tested it
    http://www.irongeek.com/i.php?page=security/thumbscrew-software-usb-write-blocker

  • Tina March 7, 2011

    S A Raj,

    did you follow the advice above to secure your external hard drive? What do you think? Was this helpful?

  • Lakshya Learning March 8, 2011

    Dear all
    Thanks for all the help. I have downloaded Clamwin and have started using it. So far its working fine.
    Raj

    • Mike March 8, 2011

      Since ClanWin only scans on-demand (no real-time protection) it will not necessarily protect you or your external Hard Drive from infections!

      Even if you scan your System on a daily basis a Virus will have enough time to infect your System and hide itself from ClamWin (or even render it useless along with most other AV Tools).

      I highly recommend you to install active protection e.g. Microsoft Security Essentials on all your System.

  • Ecinajsantos02 July 6, 2011

    but if i don’t want to install any software?is there any other way to protect or put a password in external hard drive and still protected when i insert it into another pc..

  • Phani August 23, 2011

    I formated my external drives but once i connect it will hidden all my folders in external drive

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