Virus! Need help!

[sWhatTheWTFs1]

I have unfortunately contracted a virus on my removable hard drive. It is an autorun.inf virus which creates shortcuts of all my folders on my drive and makes all the actual folders hidden. I believe it is refereed to as the recycler virus. I have not plugged the drive into my Windows 7 OS, and don't plan on doing so. I have Ubuntu installed however and plan to use that to format my drive as from what I've read autorun.inf viruses dont affect linux. Is this true? If I plug my hard drive into the Ubuntu OS will everything my fine?
Thanks in advance

 

[unksol]

Autorun.inf only works under windows with the autorun component. Its not terribly clever as you should have to agree to let it autorun when you plug it in, and you could just delete the autorun file and scan it. For it to have gotten on your external drive though you'd have had to have it plugged into an infected system.

 

[sWhatTheWTFs1]

yeah, i gave the hard drive to a friend and when it came back he told me it was infected. Pretty stupid of me :/. The autorun runs an .exe that does what I've stated above. I just really don't want to plug the hard drive into windows in case of the slightest chance of infection. I guess I'll just use Ubuntu if autoruns are as dumb as you say! Thanks!

 

[unksol]

Yea if your just going to format it it wont be an issue. You could probably pull the data to if its anything you need. Of you are really worried about it you could use parted magic or another live CD to do it. Then there's no OS for then to attack at all. He needs to disinfect his PC or whatever he had it plugged into of course though

 

[nikorr]

Try this...

Run #1 and than #2 @ Simple and free guide to removing malware

 

[sWhatTheWTFs1]

Best answer selected by sWhatTheWTFs1.

 

[nikorr]

This topic has been closed by Nikorr