Dual Booting

[Noob]

Okay, so i have a newbie question.
I want to make 2 partitions to install 2 OS's.
So here is my Hahahaha

I want to use 1 partition for my everyday tasks such as surfing the web, gaming, etc. And this will be my main one which will be protected with my setups etc.

The second OS i want to use it to test crapware and everything related to it, so the million (imaginary ) dollar question is, can my main partition get infected with malware if i ran them in the crapware one?

[noone_particular]

Yes. For malware testing, The best choice is a separate PC. The next best is a virtual system.

[Noob]

Originally Posted by noone_particular

Yes. For malware testing, The best choice is a separate PC. The next best is a virtual system.

Thanks

Any more info

[hierophant]

What OS(s) do you want to run?

IME, VirtualBox x64 on Ubuntu Lucid x64 with Ubuntu Lucid x32 and Win XP x32 VMs works very well. I wasn't so happy with Win 7 x64 and Win Server 2008 x64 VMs. Perhaps there are better Guest Additions for them now.

[Sully]

Originally Posted by noone_particular

Yes. For malware testing, The best choice is a separate PC. The next best is a virtual system.

Yes is not always the answer here. It is true that it 'could' happen, but not likely IMO. Most nasties try to infect the host OS. They don't usually look to see if there are other partitions with other an OS on them, and then infect those as well. Not that it could not happen, it certainly could. I simply don't believe malware is going to do it. Trojans and virii, different story.

Of course it doesn't hurt to be cautious, they say an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure. I used to dual boot all the time, but I used separate drives instead of partitions. I never had an issue, ever. That doesn't mean you won't, it means that saying yes it will happen is not always true.

Virtual machines are much better for this sort of thing. With the snapshot features, you can easily and quickly roll back in time and test it again. Got a nasty that evaded your security, restore snapshot, adjust your security, try again. It may not be as absolutely safe as another machine entirely, but it sure makes it easier.

Sul.

[Sadeghi85]

I have a 'test' partition to test legitimate softwares to see if they are good enough to be on my 'main' partition. For testing questionable ones I use VM. VMware Player is pretty good for free, it can now create VMs, you can download VMware Tools separately or let it download for you, it doesn't come with snapshot feature though.

As for dual booting, avoid the Microsoft way. Use a good boot manager, XOSL and BootIt NG are the good ones.

Remember to hide other OS partitions before installing another one.