Virus Ruins Hard Drive?

I have an external HD on my G: port. It was recognized last night and today it is not. No matter which USB slot I try to connect it to, Say "H" port, "H" disappears from the "My Computer" screen. If I unplug from "H" and reconnect to "G", "H" reappears in My Computer as a removeable drive, but "G" does not.

It acts as if the drive has been wiped out to the point that my computer can't detect that it is there. The last thing I downloaded onto that drive is Picasa 2 to upload pictures. I'm using XP and no Anti-virus software.
Please help! I have all pictures of my kid's first 3 years on that drive.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Sounds like the drive could be damaged. If it doesn't work in another computer, you may have to use a data recovery service. But first, read this: http://askbobrankin.com/hard_drive_recovery.html

Hi. I have a virus "iexplore.exe" on my computer that is running XP Home. My computer is a Compaq and it is about 2 years old. I had it cleaned but this particular virus, from what I've read, is nearly impossible to remove. I can access my files.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Why do you think this is a virus? That's the filename for the Internet Explorer browser. Do you have any antivirus software now? If not, this may help: http://askbobrankin.com/should_i_buy_antispyware_or_antivirus_software.html

listen there is no way a virus can destroy a hd. It may slow it down or you may have problems. But is is not possible to destroy it. They are made to fetch files for hours strate.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Thanks for the strate talk.

I don't know if there are viruses that can harm your hard drive,but i just encountered one that tried to delete all of the files on my hard drives. It was through a jump in a link on google. It had a message that it was scanning the hard drive and then that it was starting file erase sequence. At that point i just pulled the plug on my computer to avoid any risks. So far i have not noticed or found any viruses on my computer or any missing files.

EDITOR'S NOTE: It was probably just a spoof, but that sort of thing can happen. Normally, though, viruses have a vested interest in NOT harming your machine. Your computer is more valuable to the Bad Guys as a spam-spewing robot, a participant in a denial of service attack, or a source of valuable personal information.

Forgive me, but I am so sick of this Urban Legend! There is no virus that will literally your hard drive. Yet, I get emails from people I know warning me that one of these viruses has been found and is going around.

Impossible! If all else fails, including your anti-virus program, your anti-spyware program, etc., simply reinstall your operating system. That will put your PC back to what it was like when you bought it.

I have pals who work in I.T., like Sun Microsystems, and they all say this is hogwash. However, a hard drive can go bad, sure. But, it won't be from a virus. For the last time, this is a hoax!!!

EDITOR'S NOTE: Ummm, right! That's what the article says. :-)

i have a huge nasty virus and it put a partition that is write protected into my harddrive. I have formatted the whole computer but there is a drive boot(x) that is filled with files that i want to remove. how can I remove this drive using command prompt. i can not load windows onto my computer or anything until this drive is gone. Can you please help.
thankyou in advance, val

EDITOR'S NOTE: The FDISK utility will help you manage partitions.

A sophisticated virus could run a low level format on your drive or reset your entire drive to 1010...etc. Never say that science can't so something.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Yes, of course, but that's just writing to the disk, not causing physical damage.

I've just discovered a virus that does destroy hard drives. It destroyed my laptop harddrive and three other harddrives of people i know in the last week. It corrupts internet explorer and mozilla firefox browses first making them unusable, then after between 5 to 10 startups of the comp it destroys the boot sector on the harddrive making it unusable. It actual creates bad sectors in the boot sector so FDisk and Formating are not possible. If you find you are having browser problems with IE and Firefox on you PC i suggest formating before the boot sector can be infected.

EDITOR'S NOTE: You suggest *FORMATTING* as a cure for browser problems? Isn't that like suggesting decapitation as a cure for a headache? And are you going to keep the name of this awful virus a secret?

Ive delt with a lot of virus's and now of days they have virus that dont even require your computer to be turned on just as long as it is plugged into the wall it is enough. I to ran into this virus Nick is talking about atleast similiar one. The virus well even turn my computer on when it is off. Im to late though i attempt to reformat my computer and it wont let me it well just freeze up at oe of the reformat screens. Ive never encountered a problem like this before and I've seen some horrid virus's

I am not familiar with any viruses that attack the flash rom of harddrives, but it would be technically possible to damage the drive using a method similar to a firmware update. I have heard of viruses in the past that have done this with motherboard bios. But due to the very specific memory addresses that change with every brand and type of drive out there, I think this would be a very unlikely exploit. As a technician though, I have seen drive failure mysteriously linked with viruses. Such as a computer's drive will fail within weeks or days of a virus discovery. My theory is that it might be related the drive continually seeking in a certain sector. And over time this may cause actual damage to this one spot in the disk cylinder or even the drive arm.