I try to load most applications on my C: drive, and most of my data (esp photos and music files - not downloaded, but sourced by me) on various non-primary drives. Such viruses etc as I have had over the years have been almost exclusively on my primary drive.
Is this most people's experience?
It's of practical interest because scanning for malware can take a very long time if I have terabytes of data to trawl through. I don't mind doing that routinely weekly, but when trying to track down a new squeaking critter it can waste a lot of time.
* Malware is capable of hiding from AV, antispyware and anti-rootkit technology. "For example," StillSecure said in its analysis, "a known virus was present on [one of the four test endpoints] but the antivirus tool failed to clean the machine. If this occurred in a real-world setting, the end user would have no indication that the machine was infected, leading to further destruction of the device."
* Malware can be detected by security tools but cannot be deleted. Certain sophisticated threats hide in protected folders so they cannot be removed.
* Most components of malware are visible to AV and antispyware tools, but are expendable; any components of the virus that remain after AV cleanup are often capable of replacing deleted files.
* Pop-up windows dupe end users into clicking on malicious sites.