Resolved Do I need Anti Virus on a Back up External Hard Drive

Having nearly lost data which took me months to collect, I think I've learned my lesson and bought a 1.TB external USB hard drive to back everything up on.

Now I've never used one of these before, so I have a couple of questions.

(1) Is it possible to get a Virus or a Trojan on an External Hard Drive?

(2) Should I install Antivirus on an External Hard Drive or is there no need?
If I do need it how do I put it on?

(3) Can you Format an External USB Hard Drive or is there no need?

Running Windows XP Pro (Thanks to Peter for saving all my data)

 

Hi Peter Many Thanks

Hi Peter

Many Thanks for answering all my questions and helping me to day.
Since getting the hang of safemode and removing Avast!

I tried Avast again! because it's light and non intrusive when it's working but this time I turned off automatic updates, and it worked perfectly.

At least it did on one drive but on another one, I kept getting re boot syndrome, so I put AVG on that one and that works but I don't like it because it keeps popping up asking to scan the system etc.

On the drive that Avast does work on, it was done on a clean install but the other one with my data on wouldn't work with Avast.

I must admit I've been very lax at backing up my data and nearly paid the price with the loss of a Website, which took me several months to put together.

I tried to put on the Microsoft one you recommended by it cannot verify that I have a genuine copy (although I have)

So far so good fingers crossed!

Thanks Again

 

Did you let it scan? You should and then it shouldn't ask you again.

 

Hi and many thanks

Hi Mr Bill

I was thinking about doing that but I couldn't close off this thread after Peter C answered my question as there was a clash between Firefox and this Anti Virus
I kept getting the microsoft do you want to report an error sign every time.

So I am going to wipe that drive and do a clean install.
Avast seems to have a bug in it which I read about somewhere but if you turn off Auto Updates it seems to work ok.

A real shame as I really like Avast and its saved my bacon quite a few times!

As you may have read I have slide out drives and the general one I use for normal surfing went wrong big time, so I will post a new thread and hope you and Peter can help.

 

I used AVG for years and it has never let me down. Couple of friends use MSE and loved it. I changed out one of my PC's from AVG to MSE and liked it. I have made the switch on all 5 of them and so have lots of my friends.
Good luck in what you do.

 

Hi Mr Bill Many Thanks

Hi Mr Bill many thanks for your help

I tried to install MSE but there seemed to be a problem getting my copy of XP validated even though my copy of XP is legit.

I would certainly like to give it a try when I get over this present nightmare see my new thread.

Thanks again