My question is in regards to, as the title states, getting a new hard drive. It's a crazy computer world we live with viruses, worms, and bad roomates makes living in a technological world even more difficult. What my question is that if per say a Worm, virus, etc. got onto your HDD would it also affect files that you wanted to transfer to a new HDD for instance music, movie, picture files. I'm not trying to sound paranoind or that I need to to do this right now but if it ever came to it would I be able to safely move my uneffected music, etc. files to the new HDD and just get rid of the old one? Many thanks in advance.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Getting a new HDD.
- Thread starter RMD68
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I doubt you're going to get any malware on your Mac.
But yes, you'd probably be able to xfer music and picture files without any bother. Even better - make sure they're backed up somewhere safe
But yes, you'd probably be able to xfer music and picture files without any bother. Even better - make sure they're backed up somewhere safe
Viruses infect other files, so a virus (not that there are any wild Mac viruses) will infect other files, though generally executables (there have been flaws in content players on the Mac, so content is an obvious target and sooner or later there will be something that infects content, let's hope for later.)
Worms are generally used to install Trojans, and that's not content-specific.
Generally, you're safe moving content, but if the platform is subject to viruses, then ensure that you run a virus scanner over the content and that it's set to check non-executable files.
Not sure why you wouldn't just back up the content and reformat/reinstall the OS though.
That would definitely make sense. I was just wondering if the other way would work if it got so bad that I needed a new HDD or if some type of program embedded itself and did damage.