Hello.

My brother installed Ubuntu 12 and he said that I shouldn't plug this hard drive along with the Windows one because if the Windows drive is infected it could "damage" the drive that has Linux installed.
So I though maybe I would unplug the Linux one and plug the Windows one to play a game. Should this be safe? Using just one drive at a time? Then after I use Windows, I turn off the machine, unplug the Windows drive, plug the Linux one and then turn the computer on again.

Thanks.

it is nonsense

but if your brother were to detail their thinking I might change my mind.

Hi, this is Amanda's brother. Couldn't a virus on the Windows drive copy itself to the Linux drive or even delete data on the Linux drive?

I think we're safer if we plug one drive at a time, as she said above.

No.

If you're running Linux and plug in a Windows hard drive, you're safe. Windows is NOT Linux...Windows programs do not run on Linux, period. This includes viruses. And, since Linux uses privilege separation, the chances of a virus having RIGHTS to actually damage anything (even if it COULD run), are tiny.

You can no more have a Windows virus on Linux, as you could on a Mac.

I think that would be highly unlikely. Windows viruses don't run on Linux, so the Windows disk would need to contain some Linux-specific malware. Even then, malware sitting on disk doesn't any harm, unless something runs it. Linux systems don't have the autorun functionality that used to help viruses spread on Windows systems, so either the user would need to run it deliberately, or you would have needed to set something up do to this (or the Linux system is already infected).

So I should be safe using both HD's at the same time?

A virus for Windows will have no effects on Linux so you should be fine. However if you have windows in your computer you should spend some cash to buy an anti virus program such as Kaspersky, Norton, or Trend Micro Titanium. All these anti virus software combined with good online habits and common sense usually are good. Licensing for these programs are good for a year then you have to buy the license again for another year.

Programs like spy-bot search and destroy, windows essentials,McAfee and others usually dont work. So don't rely on them.

You will be fine in Linux, install programs that are made to run for the linux flavor you are using and grant root access only software you trust and you will be rock solid on your system.

Good luck to you guys.

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NO


Microsoft dose NOT support any non patented and copyrighted ( by MS ) drive formats
Windows will NEVER ( out of the box) be able to read and write to a ext3 or ext4 or btfs or even apples hfs+ partition formats

Windows "sees" the linux install as a broken file system in need of fixing
( and will" fix it for you " ,if you let it )

now the other way " Might have issues"

while running a Nix OS and you download a Virus infected windows program
and save it to the windows drive
or on a dvd and then access it using MS windows
that can infect the windows OS

but windows can not AUTOMATICALLY infect a linux install
unlike the AUTOMATIC download and install viruses on Windows
( you know the ones where all you need to do is "mouse OVER -- NO CLICKING NEEDED " a advertisement and the virus is auto installed on windows )

Yes, but I was worried that a virus could somehow delete data of "sda", "sdb" etc, regardless if Windows can or can't see ext4 partitions.
That's a problem. It "fixes" things that aren't broken.
Thank Zeus Ubuntu has a BootRecover tool that I can run on the LiveCD.
Thanks. I'm already aware of this possibility.
This is good news, it can't infect Linux installs. But let's put our tinfoil hats and at least consider the possibility of data destruction.

Or am I being too paranoid to think that a Windows virus could delete data on any drive (with a command that would be the equivalent of "dd")?

viruses do not delete partitions
now "ransomware" might try to encrypt it first
but without being able to read the data in the first place ......

for "data destruction"
a person (a real person ! ) would be needed to be attacking YOU
you are not a fortune 500 CEO, nor the nsa,cia , or any other "three letter origination( TLO)"

so a real person ( non bot) would not be attacking you
-- unless you royally bleeped off some teens ( script kiddies ) over at 4-chan

even then a script kiddie will not be able to do much ,after all they ARE NOT A "TLO"

In general, if you've booted Linux, it'd be able to ``see'' the Windows drive but the executables (.exe), self-extracting Zip files, etc. wouldn't run on Linux. If you've booted Windows, the likelyhood of the OS even being able to ``see'' the Linux drive to go about damaging data is pretty low.

I would have the following caveats, though: a.) A Windows executable could conceivably be run on Linux using Wine so a certain amount of care should be observed in what you double click on (I haven't found much, if anything from Windows World that I want to run under Linux so I think I'm safe. YMMV). b.) For the time being, Windows doesn't understand how to interpret the contents of a Linux filesystem. That doesn't mean that some virus/worm-writing bozo couldn't go out and try to corrupt all drives available on the system. I think the more dangerous of the two scenarios is when you're running Windows. To screw up things up when you're running Linux requires that you deliberately run the nasty Windows executables.

If these two disks are USB-connected, the more paranoid among us would go ahead and disconnect the non-native disk when booting a given operating system. And, at all times, have a good backup of both environments. (Well, you don't need to be paranoid for that to be a good practice.)

Good luck.

--
Rick

1 members found this post helpful.

Thank you very much