Will downloading to an ext. hard drive make my computer get a virus?

[bolton231]

If i hook an ext. Hard drive up to download music and I get a bad file, will the virus effect my computer or just the ext. hard drive? Cause I bought an expensive macbook pro and dont want to ruin it like I did my old pc by downloading, but I still need my tunes. Thanks for the help

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

Not sure, but I think Itunes is safe.

However, downloading viruses, to your computer or another hard drive is always dangerous.

Where exactly are you downloading from?

[bolton231]

i would likely be downloading torrents. usually from mininova. not itunes

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

Not all torrents contain viruses, but most of them do.
If you don't run them, it is unlikely they will infect your computer.

[socrates]

It's very unlikely you'll have any virus issues though on your MBP as most of the viruses included with torrents are written for Windows, not for Mac's OS. 

It never hurts though to have an antivirus solution just in case.

[BC_Programmer]

Unless they are downloading mac software via torrent. Torrents of Mac software would likely also (if infected) have mac-specific malware.

If they are downloading windows-oriented software, they will likely not infect their macbook pro- but whatever Windows machine they end up using the torrent contents on could be at risk.

[socrates]

That's true, although much more unlikely than windows torrents.  I've been using torrents on a no-antivirus mac now for 3 years without any issues.

I will agree though that it's much more likely that you'd have a mac virus attached to a mac torrent versus a windows torrent having a mac virus.