Temporarily disabling a partition

[Tarzan2001]

Hi,

I've recently purchased an external hard drive case and a 160 GB hard drive to use for back-up and data transfer. I've made 3 partitions using the Computer Management program in Windows XP. I was wondering if there is any way to temporarily disable a partition so that it doesn't get infected with a virus because I want to use my external HDD to transfer data from my friends' computers, but here in the dorms not everyone is as diligent in protecting their computers as I am, so many of my friends' PCs are infected. Because I also want to use one of the partitions for back-up, I don't want to lose my data. Plus, trying to salvage data by transferring it to my PC, then re-formatting the partition, then transferring back is such a headache! I'm not very familiar with using the Computer Management feature in Windows, so I was hoping someone could give me some tips, or point me towards another program that can do it. ...Or if it's even possible! P Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Also, now that I think about it, does anyone know if there's any way to install an anti-virus program on removable media like a USB flash drive That way the viruses could be stopped before infecting the flash drive, or also scanning the host computer off the flash drive. Please suggest any programs that can do this. Thanks.

[AmberJain]

Hello,

Ans-1. Faronics DeepFreeze
Ans-2. ClamWin portable Anti-virus

I had never used both of these programs. Whenever I wish to connect my flash drive to any infected PC to transfer data, I first boot into Damn small linux live CD and then transfer any data inside linux.

Hope this helps...
AmbrNewlearner

[Tarzan2001]

Hey! Thanks very much for the links! :D I'll definitely try out those programs. They look very helpful. I'm curious though...with the ClamWin program, if you have to double-click the .exe to start the program, won't the flash drive already be infected by then? :-S Or is it just assumed that the anti-virus program will be able to clean the flash drive after it's scanned?

Also, are you just angry when you say "Damn small linux live CD", or is the word "damn" actually in the original name?? :P hehe. I'm not very familiar with Linux. I've got Ubuntu, and I've tested the boot aspect of the CD, but it's quite large for doing PC rescue work, no?

[AmberJain]

@Tarzan2001
If the flash drive is set to autorun, then this is true. But if flash drive is not set to autorun a virus, then if you see the contents of drive by right-clicking the drive and selecting "Explore" then malicious file cannot execute.

Or is it just assumed that the anti-virus program will be able to clean the flash drive after it's scanned?

I suppose that this should work (although I had never tried this myself) as you expect.

Also, are you just angry when you say "Damn small linux live CD", or is the word "damn" actually in the original name?? :P hehe.

It's the original name of a very light weight (and small) linux distro called Damn small linux. The distro is about 50 MB in size. It loads very fast and with 'dsl toram' boot time cheatcode, you can actually load the contents of cd to RAM.

I'm not very familiar with Linux. I've got Ubuntu, and I've tested the boot aspect of the CD, but it's quite large for doing PC rescue work, no?

Yeah...ubuntu is a large distro. For troubleshooting, backup and recovery purposes, I prefer using either Damn small linux (DSL) or slax. Slax has a better GUI than DSL and so it appears more intuitive.

Hope this helps......
AmbrNewlearner