My Vista's courrupting external hard disks.

[iNiks]

I hope I posted this in the right forum.

Recently, any external hard disks that are plugged into my HP laptop are being corrupted. This morning, when I plugged in a friend's hard disk, my antivirus suddenly started detecting trojans in MY laptop. I scanned my laptop, deleted 5 trojans.

When my friend unplugged her hard disk and checked it on her computer, it was completely corrupted. Same thing happened to another friend of mine who wanted me to transfer some files into his disk.

What is going on?

[EzyStvy]

Trojans are bad things
Which AV are you using? Have you done a Full Scan?

[iNiks]

I have done a full scan, Ezy.

My laptop didn't come with an anti virus so I installed a free version of Avira - I've heard it's good.

[rjfvillarosa]

Download, install and run a scan with Malwarebytes and pay particular attention to the root kit scanner.
You can download a copy free here:
www.malwarebytes.org

[iNiks]

I just started a full scan - might take a while.
Are you going to be here much longer?

[rjfvillarosa]

I have been here four or five years already so I am sure I will be around a bit more......

I have a few jobs going on today but I will be in and out for most of the day. If this starts to look more like an infection than a Vista problem I will move your thread over to the Securities board. While you are waiting for the scan to finish try reading the sticky about HighJackThis in the Securities board.

[iNiks]

I will, thanks loads.

[iNiks]

Sorry for not getting back to you earlier - I had to leave.

So I performed the full scan and found just one trojan.agent and deleted it.
What's the root kit scanner?

[rjfvillarosa]

The root scanner is part of the overall scan that Malwarebytes carries out. The way that the other external harddrives were getting damaged caused me to wonder if you had some kind of malware residing in the "root" of your harddrive, "root kits" can be hard to detect and very hard to remove.
You say you deleted the trojan Malwarebytes found, have you had chance to connect another external harddrive to see if the problem persists?
If you haven't, try using a spare harddrive that won't matter if it gets corrupted.
Did you happen to notice the name of the trojan that was deleted?

[iNiks]

I haven't tried to plug in a hard disk just yet.
My friends won't let me, LOL.

It was just called "Trojan.Agent"

[iNiks]

This is what the log said :

Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware 1.30
Database version: 1419
Windows 6.0.6001 Service Pack 1

24/11/2008 10:45:18 PM
mbam-log-2008-11-24 (22-45-12).txt

Scan type: Full Scan (C:\|D:\|G:\|)
Objects scanned: 286791
Time elapsed: 2 hour(s), 6 minute(s), 3 second(s)

Memory Processes Infected: 0
Memory Modules Infected: 0
Registry Keys Infected: 0
Registry Values Infected: 0
Registry Data Items Infected: 0
Folders Infected: 0
Files Infected: 1

Memory Processes Infected:
(No malicious items detected)

Memory Modules Infected:
(No malicious items detected)

Registry Keys Infected:
(No malicious items detected)

Registry Values Infected:
(No malicious items detected)

Registry Data Items Infected:
(No malicious items detected)

Folders Infected:
(No malicious items detected)

Files Infected:
C:\Users\HP Pavilion\AppData\Roaming\Desktopicon\eBayShortcuts.exe (Trojan.Agent) -> No action taken.

[Kuch]

Did you have Malwarebytes remove the trojan? Your log seems to indicate it wasn't. Do another scan and make sure it removes any infections.