How To Scan External Hard Drive For Virus

Q. I understand that scanning my system for malware and viruses is good for my main hard drive and operating system, but how do I scan external hard drives? I want to make sure that I am not rising infection from a thumb drive or other external storage.

Question: Q: virus scanning external hard drive Sorry for the newbie question, but new to macs. I have an external hard drive, from my PC days that I would like to connect to my late 2013 iMac. If you are uncertain about the safety of an external storage device, you can force a scan of the drive and all of the files it contains. To do this, open up Windows Explorer and right click the. Another option for scanning for viruses when you don't have access to Windows is to use a free bootable antivirus program. These are programs that run from portable devices like discs or flash drives, that can scan a hard drive for viruses without starting the operating system at all. Catch-22 situation. Can't scan an external drive unless connected, don't want to connect and get infected. You can at least turn off AutoPlay, via Control Panel so the drive doesn't do any auto.

A. It's true that antivirus and antimalware apps typically scan your primary hard drive as part of their protection. This is because harmful software generally finds its way on to a computer through downloading if from email or a website and installing it, even though that's often done inadvertently.

And while that is the most common vector, virus and other malware can come from external drives.

On HoustonChronicle.com:Read more Helpline columns from Jay Lee

There are malicious programs that will attach themselves to a USB drive and will jump from that drive to any system it is attached to.

In many cases, a good antivirus program will detect this and block it. But not always.

If you are uncertain about the safety of an external storage device, you can force a scan of the drive and all of the files it contains.

To do this, open up Windows Explorer and right click the device. If you have a good antivirus application installed, it should give you the option to scan it.

If you do not have that option, most antivirus and antimalware applications have advanced scanning options that will allow you to kick off a manual scan. Check your application documentation for details.

As an example, Malwarebytes offers the option of right clicking a drive, folder or file in File Explorer and scanning it. The app also has custom scanning options in the app itself.

Q. I use Microsoft Office apps like Word and Excel all of the time. Both applications have been freezing and crashing with greater. Is there anything I can do to make the programs run more reliably?

A. Generally speaking, when an application starts to misbehave, one of the most effective options for resolution is to just uninstall the program, reboot and then reinstall. This fix has been a real lifesaver for me on more occasions than I can count.

Release Notes:Get Dwight Silverman's weekly tech newsletter in your inbox each Monday

But with Office there's another option to try before taking this route and that is to use the built-in repair tool.

To access this, close any open Microsoft Office applications and then open the Control Panel.

Look for Add/Remove Programs and open that up and find Microsoft Office and highlight it.

When you do that, you will see an option at the top of the window that says Repair. Click on that to start the process. This tool can really work wonders on a problematic install of Microsoft Office.

helpline@chron.com

In more recent years, one of the most common ways for a virus to spread itself has been through the autorun.inf file that resides on the root of your removable device such as a USB stick or hard drive. When you insert the device into a computer, the autorun file then executes the program it's told to which in many cases can be malicious file, and then you have a problem on your hands.

Thankfully in Windows XP and above the Autorun.inf virus issue is now pretty much redundant as the inf file no longer gets executed by default in Windows when it's inserted and so the malicious file cannot get launched. The problem with removable USB devices is they are so portable that the drive could have been plugged into several other computers before it comes back to you. And with that in mind, there's always a chance that it could have been infected and other types of malicious files might have been transferred onto it along the way.

Several Antivirus packages these days will offer to scan USB devices when inserted, but sometimes this option is buried in the settings and not automatically enabled.

Some others don't offer this function or only scan the Autorun.inf file to see if it has been infected and you would have to run a manual scan yourself which can easily be forgotten. Here we have a way to automatically scan the USB flash drive whenever it is inserted or plugged in to a Windows computer.

USBVirusScan isn't really a tool for beginners though because it doesn't have graphical user interface (GUI). The configuration and launching is done from a batch file called Start.bat and the tool itself only has an About screen that looks like the image below which shows the command line options.

The only thing you need is an Antivirus package installed. If you don't have one and don't want to pay for one, have a look at our comprehensive list of free Antivirus software. Then you'll need to find out the commands that need to be on the line that can perform a scan when you insert a USB drive. Once you have the command line, just edit the Start.bat file in the USBVirusScan folder.

The command line options can be a bit confusing for some users and finding the correct syntax and commands is not always easy because every antivirus software is different. So for your convenience we've provided a few command lines for some popular antivirus software. If you're using a 64-bit Windows, you may need to change the Program Files entries to Program Files (x86) depending on which folder your Antivirus uses. The simplest way to check is to browse and see which folder the Antivirus is in and use the correct one in the batch file.

Place 'Start USBVirusScan.exe' without the quotes at the beginning of Start.bat and add one of the commands to the line depending on the Antivirus software package you have. Then simply execute the bat file and the program will sit in the system tray waiting for a USB drive to be inserted. Memory usage is small occupying only 1MB on our Windows 7 64-bit test system, so can easily sit in the background all the time if you come into contact with lots of USB flash drives.

On the next page we'll show you the command line options required for USBVirusScan in 15 popular antivirus and internet security packages.

You might also like:

Hydraulic press brake. C:Program FilesMicrosoft Security ClientMpCmdRun.exe' -Scan -ScanType 3 -File %%c:

if i insert a usb drive can be letter d e f g h … ?
how you can understand the letter to must use ?

and why you use %% ?

%%c:

Lededit 2014 v2.44 download hd. Great program idea, but I have to ask, why is it that Antivirus suites don't do this automatically. It just seems like common senses, you shouldn't have to use another program and then program it to use your antivirus. This is beyond stupid in my thinking about how antivirus utilities work, they should be protecting flash drives automatically.

Its good to find the virus scan in pc system

Thank u
praveenkumar

will this auto scan utility work with Bitdefender free edition? if so, how should do that? Dbx viewer for mac. please send me the procedure.

is it possible to revert back after changes made (automatic scan)? can you show how.

How to do this usb auto scan for comodo internet security premium 2013?

Although Comodo do have what is believed to be a command line scanner called Cavscan.exe in the Comodo folder, it seems they haven't bothered to tell anyone how to use it.

The output from Cavscan is always blank whatever arguments you put into it. Comodo's forums have loads of people asking how to utilize this tool, no-one ever seems to come back with useful answers.

Very useful program, indeed.
As I use Norton AV, one problem is that the path of NAVW32.exe changes when updated automatically.
So I wrote following bat file which finds the path and kick USBVirusScan.

Content of USBChkStart.bat :
—————– snip ——————
setlocal
reg query 'HKLMsoftwaremicrosoftwindowscurrentversionapp pathsnavw32.exe' | find ':' >–AA–.txt
for /f 'tokens=3,4,5,6' %%p in (–AA–.txt) do set nortonpath=%%p %%q %%r %%s
start /b USBVirusScan.exe %nortonpath% %%c: /S+ /B+
endlocal
——————snip ——————

Another bat file (USBChkStop.bat) to stop is:
usbvirusscan -q

If you do not have that option, most antivirus and antimalware applications have advanced scanning options that will allow you to kick off a manual scan. Check your application documentation for details.

As an example, Malwarebytes offers the option of right clicking a drive, folder or file in File Explorer and scanning it. The app also has custom scanning options in the app itself.

Q. I use Microsoft Office apps like Word and Excel all of the time. Both applications have been freezing and crashing with greater. Is there anything I can do to make the programs run more reliably?

A. Generally speaking, when an application starts to misbehave, one of the most effective options for resolution is to just uninstall the program, reboot and then reinstall. This fix has been a real lifesaver for me on more occasions than I can count.

Release Notes:Get Dwight Silverman's weekly tech newsletter in your inbox each Monday

But with Office there's another option to try before taking this route and that is to use the built-in repair tool.

To access this, close any open Microsoft Office applications and then open the Control Panel.

Look for Add/Remove Programs and open that up and find Microsoft Office and highlight it.

When you do that, you will see an option at the top of the window that says Repair. Click on that to start the process. This tool can really work wonders on a problematic install of Microsoft Office.

helpline@chron.com

In more recent years, one of the most common ways for a virus to spread itself has been through the autorun.inf file that resides on the root of your removable device such as a USB stick or hard drive. When you insert the device into a computer, the autorun file then executes the program it's told to which in many cases can be malicious file, and then you have a problem on your hands.

Thankfully in Windows XP and above the Autorun.inf virus issue is now pretty much redundant as the inf file no longer gets executed by default in Windows when it's inserted and so the malicious file cannot get launched. The problem with removable USB devices is they are so portable that the drive could have been plugged into several other computers before it comes back to you. And with that in mind, there's always a chance that it could have been infected and other types of malicious files might have been transferred onto it along the way.

Several Antivirus packages these days will offer to scan USB devices when inserted, but sometimes this option is buried in the settings and not automatically enabled.

Some others don't offer this function or only scan the Autorun.inf file to see if it has been infected and you would have to run a manual scan yourself which can easily be forgotten. Here we have a way to automatically scan the USB flash drive whenever it is inserted or plugged in to a Windows computer.

USBVirusScan isn't really a tool for beginners though because it doesn't have graphical user interface (GUI). The configuration and launching is done from a batch file called Start.bat and the tool itself only has an About screen that looks like the image below which shows the command line options.

The only thing you need is an Antivirus package installed. If you don't have one and don't want to pay for one, have a look at our comprehensive list of free Antivirus software. Then you'll need to find out the commands that need to be on the line that can perform a scan when you insert a USB drive. Once you have the command line, just edit the Start.bat file in the USBVirusScan folder.

The command line options can be a bit confusing for some users and finding the correct syntax and commands is not always easy because every antivirus software is different. So for your convenience we've provided a few command lines for some popular antivirus software. If you're using a 64-bit Windows, you may need to change the Program Files entries to Program Files (x86) depending on which folder your Antivirus uses. The simplest way to check is to browse and see which folder the Antivirus is in and use the correct one in the batch file.

Place 'Start USBVirusScan.exe' without the quotes at the beginning of Start.bat and add one of the commands to the line depending on the Antivirus software package you have. Then simply execute the bat file and the program will sit in the system tray waiting for a USB drive to be inserted. Memory usage is small occupying only 1MB on our Windows 7 64-bit test system, so can easily sit in the background all the time if you come into contact with lots of USB flash drives.

On the next page we'll show you the command line options required for USBVirusScan in 15 popular antivirus and internet security packages.

You might also like:

Hydraulic press brake. C:Program FilesMicrosoft Security ClientMpCmdRun.exe' -Scan -ScanType 3 -File %%c:

if i insert a usb drive can be letter d e f g h … ?
how you can understand the letter to must use ?

and why you use %% ?

%%c:

Lededit 2014 v2.44 download hd. Great program idea, but I have to ask, why is it that Antivirus suites don't do this automatically. It just seems like common senses, you shouldn't have to use another program and then program it to use your antivirus. This is beyond stupid in my thinking about how antivirus utilities work, they should be protecting flash drives automatically.

Its good to find the virus scan in pc system

Thank u
praveenkumar

will this auto scan utility work with Bitdefender free edition? if so, how should do that? Dbx viewer for mac. please send me the procedure.

is it possible to revert back after changes made (automatic scan)? can you show how.

How to do this usb auto scan for comodo internet security premium 2013?

Although Comodo do have what is believed to be a command line scanner called Cavscan.exe in the Comodo folder, it seems they haven't bothered to tell anyone how to use it.

The output from Cavscan is always blank whatever arguments you put into it. Comodo's forums have loads of people asking how to utilize this tool, no-one ever seems to come back with useful answers.

Very useful program, indeed.
As I use Norton AV, one problem is that the path of NAVW32.exe changes when updated automatically.
So I wrote following bat file which finds the path and kick USBVirusScan.

Content of USBChkStart.bat :
—————– snip ——————
setlocal
reg query 'HKLMsoftwaremicrosoftwindowscurrentversionapp pathsnavw32.exe' | find ':' >–AA–.txt
for /f 'tokens=3,4,5,6' %%p in (–AA–.txt) do set nortonpath=%%p %%q %%r %%s
start /b USBVirusScan.exe %nortonpath% %%c: /S+ /B+
endlocal
——————snip ——————

Another bat file (USBChkStop.bat) to stop is:
usbvirusscan -q

Place them anywhere you want (desktop for example). Works great.
Tak

Thanks mate appreciate a lot

Thanks raymond

Neat program. Thanks for the info raymond, I'm gonna introduce this program to all my mates :)

Scan External Drive For Errors