To make my question clear I will give an example. There are 4 primary partitions on my HD. Partition 1 is Fat16 1.8GB (no OS, just boot files) Partition 2 is NTFS 8GB - Windows 2000 Server Partition 3 is NTFS 8GB - Windows 2000 Server Partition 4 is either going to be Windows 2000 pro (NTFS) or Win98 (Fat32) In case you were wondering I am trying out windows 2000 server via a trial version available from my school (from MS) We are using it to try out different things such as Active directory, and other services. I was wondering if I had partition 1,2,3 hidden if partition 4 was infected with a virus, will it spread to the other hidden partitions? The HD is a removable drive and I am going to use the 4th partition at home and I do not want to infect my 3 school partitions with a virus if something like that happens.

In my experience, I've never seen a virus affect anything other than the primary partition. Of course, if you had a virus affecting all .doc files, and you were to open a file stored on another partition from the infected partition, that file would become infected, and hence spread to the partition where it is stored if you save it there. But no, as far as I know, you should have nothing to worry about. I would advise researching it more if your very concerned, as anything is possible, but most virus are written to infect the system partition, there are too many variables as far as multiple partitons, and most Windows machines place the primary target on the C: drive, making it a simple target. This would not be a bad site to start. http://www.securityfocus.com/virus

Virii look for several things to infect. Address books for email, windows system folders, .exe files, ect. Most will only scan what is open, meaning shared or mapped drives, things that have to be avaible to work, eg email and so on. It's not likely that a hidden partion will get infected but then virus's are good at getting in places we never thought about before. There could be some hole that has yet to be discovered.

About your virus question, I agree with Rick as far as nothing's really safe with viruses. If you can afford the time and effort to back up your viruss-less data, low-level format, re-partition and re-install the operating systems, then do it. Otherwise, run a decent, fully updated virus scanner across ALL partitions. Just as a passing comment, I'd suggest going for the Windows 2000 option on Partiton 4. It's much more stable and secure than 98, and 95, 98, ME and their DOS kernel are as good as dead anyway. Alternative for this partition is XP (I would say NT4 as well but it won't install that far into the disk).