My boyfriend's hardrive is busted, and we have no idea
how to fix it. We read about this virus that is spreading
through limewire, and we think that he might have it. I
heard that some viruses don't effect your computer until
later--is it possible that he gave it to my mac also, and i
just don't know it yet? We think he got it downloading
music, any way to fix it / to prevent me from getting it?
Are there good firewalls for macs like there are for PCs?
Do macs need them. Pleeeease give advice.

try booting with cd, and scan for errors,

firewalls:
http://www.versiontracker.com/php/s...

virus scanners:
http://www.versiontracker.com/php/s...

anti:
http://www.versiontracker.com/php/s...

6B 69 6C 72 6F 79 20 77 61 73 20 68 65 72 65

Your Mac didn't get a virus. There are NO viruses that can
affect an OS X system.

OSX has a pretty good Firewall built in. Open your Sharing
PreferencePane to turn it on.

"Your Mac didn't get a virus. There are NO viruses that can
affect an OS X system."

Yes there are viruses for OS X and infact the first real OS X virus was found on Feb. 16 of this year.All you half to do is a google search with OS X and virus.

I think that "pride goeth before the fall" in this instance...when some malicious sort does finally invent a destructive virus, bot, or worm...there's gonna be legions of mac users shaking their heads in puzzlement and asking 'how could this have ever happened to me?!!'
Not yet, tho..this link from a short article at 'the register' should put you at ease, sort of - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/1...

and here's info on the only other one I know about ( a trojan, actually, not a virus)...

http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/ana...

I don't think that you'd get one via limewire, at this point in time, tho, as the ones on there currently masquerade as WMA files, to infect the windows media player in unprotected windows systems.
HTH