FAT32/NTFS formatting?

basmic

posted wrote: »

Buy some DVD's and unless your hard disk is really full, leave them on there too. DVD+-R's don't get overwritten with viruses, hard disks and flash drives do, in a flash. Pull a flash drive out too fast, and it will corrupt.

Optical media is prone to media rot, possible bad CDs (ie: 3 in every 100, which isn't at all uncommon).

If you're stupid, and don't use an antivrius scanner, what's to stop you burning infected files to CD? Just use a good antivirus scanner, and you won't get a virus in the first place.

Again down to stupidity, use the USB disk properly - don't just yank it out when you think the files have been finished with. Right click the drive, choose Eject then (in Windows XP) click the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the system, at the bottom right of the screen where the clock is, and choose the drive - Windows will then tell you when it is safe to remove the hardware.

Not so hard, is it? Better than opening Nero, dragging your files across that you want burning, waiting for the burn the complete - then the verification to complete, if you want to be sure the files are burnt correctly.

What about when you want to bin a backup disk? Bin raiders, anybody? Unless you happen to own an expensive disc shredder, then I'd recommend buying one.

posted_2

Virus scanners only protect you from known viruses.

basmic

posted wrote: »

Virus scanners only protect you from known viruses.

Given that my antivrus scanner updates itself every day, and I don't make too much of a habit of exposing myself to viruses - I'm not too worried.