Is there really a need to scan your second HD? Anyone ever had a virus on second HD?

[Supersnake]

Am curious to know if it is really necessary to scan your second hard drive?

Have always installed my OS on my C:/ drive and kept my D:/ drive as a backup drive in which to install my computer games. In my 10 or so years of using a Windows computer I have never had any virus or any malware appear on my D:/ drive.

So I am wondering, is it really necessary to include both of your drives in a full system scan?

[webyourbusiness]

only you can know what your data habits are - I have encountered several file sharing demon machines from hell, where every drive was completely full of downloaded "warez" - and the infestations were on every square millimeter of HD platter (in my estimation)... so - POSSIBLY!!

[Brian N]

I've never had one on there either. I scan it rarely.

[beetlejuice69]

I just scan my main drive. I already know what`s on 2nd drive is safe.

[The Hammer]

I periodically scan my D drive just so I don't have the problem webyourbusiness described.

[i_kenefick]

{QUOTE-> Am curious to know if it is really necessary to scan your second hard drive?

Have always installed my OS on my C:/ drive and kept my D:/ drive as a backup drive in which to install my computer games. In my 10 or so years of using a Windows computer I have never had any virus or any malware appear on my D:/ drive.

So I am wondering, is it really necessary to include both of your drives in a full system scan? <-QUOTE}

Yes. You must (should) scan all drives. Most of the malware we see today aren't even viruses 'per-se'. They are either trojans, worms, or some other non viral malware like spyware and usually their affect is limited to the partition where Windows is installed. However a real virus will infect (append, prepend, overwrite etc) it's code onto files regardless of their location (depending on the payload). An over-hyped piece of such malware was spoken of in this very forum only a few days ago. The Polip virus for example... this would be able to infect executable files on your d:/ drive. It doesn't care (I don't wish to personify malware but hey :-) )

[webyourbusiness]

{QUOTE-> I periodically scan my D drive just so I don't have the problem webyourbusiness described. <-QUOTE}


woah - they weren't *MY* machines... clients brought them in with problems (unsurprisingly)!!

[The Hammer]

{QUOTE-> woah - they weren't *MY* machines... clients brought them in with problems (unsurprisingly)!! <-QUOTE}I instinctively knew that. Sorry if I offended by not making it obvious.

[YeOldeStonecat]

Not on my personal PCs at home..but I've seen them on servers partitions which have shared folders for the clients many times. So technically...the answer based on my experience is a "yet".

[webyourbusiness]

{QUOTE-> I instinctively knew that. Sorry if I offended by not making it obvious. <-QUOTE}

np - and since reading this, I've realized, that I've had NOD32 find them on server partitions where files were dragged onto BEFORE NOD32 was installed - and those partitions were any number of drive letters other than the boot drive. Actually, it's found trojans inside zip archives on our own machine that had not previously been found after an update!