Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Geek Speak => Topic started by: SciencyGummyWorms on 21/05/2015 01:30:01
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As a kid I often mess up my computer by doing things with games and messing around with my computer.
When downloading things you may acquire a virus to your hard drive (obviously)!
A virtual disk drive, however in a way negates this. Anything that infects the virtual drive will not make it's way to hard drive.
here is how to make it:
Right click on my computer, and click manage. Once on computer management screen click on disk management, then action, click on create a vhd. click dynamically moving if you want it to change size as you add files, or fixed if you want it to stay a certain size. IN disk management you will see it as unallocated. right click and select initialize, in the initialize box make sure to press MBR, this allows unlimited partitions. Select new volume and the wizard comes up, just complete the wizard. Choose a size between maximum and minimum. Then assign it a drive letter not in use. format the drive NTFs, then pick between quick format and file compression. click finish and now you have a virtual drive.
Hope this helps!
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... When downloading things you may acquire a virus to your hard drive (obviously)!
A virtual disk drive, however in a way negates this. Anything that infects the virtual drive will not make it's way to hard drive.
For protection from infection you need to create a copy of the Operating System in the Virtual Hard-Drive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHD_%28file_format%29#Advantages), i.e. create a "bootable VHD (http://blogs.technet.com/b/haroldwong/archive/2012/08/18/how-to-create-windows-8-vhd-for-boot-to-vhd-using-simple-easy-to-follow-steps.aspx)". That becomes a disposable Operating System which can be discarded if infected.
Just creating a VHD, which is what you have described, will not protect your Operating System from infection.
There are easier ways to virtualize e.g. ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandboxie
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Thanks RD - I'd not heard of that, and it sounds really useful - have you any experience of using it?
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I've used Acronis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronis_True_Image) virtualization software on Windows for years, it's very reliable, not free though.
It allows you to virtually install software in "Try&Decide" mode (http://www.acronis.com/en-gb/support/documentation/ATIH2014/8685.html) , if you don't like the new software you just choose to revert to the pre-installation state.
Similarly you can browse the internet in "Try&Decide" mode and any infection will not make it to your actual Operating System, provided you select to revert to the initial state at the end of the browsing session.
Acronis & Sandboxie type virtualization will slow-down everything though, because of the overhead of running a virtual machine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_machine).
[ My previous post was to point out that SciencyGummyWorms does not have any protection from infection just by creating a Virtual Hard Disk, they will have to install an operating system on it, and boot from it , to protect the OS on their actual hard-disk ].
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thanks RD.