Formatting the hard drive, will that erase all Spyware/Viruses/Trojans/Worms/etc.?

[Pr0d1gy]

I have, in the past, tried formatting the hard drive with only the Windows disk and not been able to remove the problems in my computer. With my old Dell you needed to do a manual debug script from DOS, outside of the OS, before you could format the drive & remove the information. The question at hand is do you need the software, such as Data Lifeguard, in order to remove all the"bad stuff" from a drive? And also will that work 100% of the time?

*Obviously there are other methods of removing these problems, but I am asking this question for those who have these problems & would rather spend an hour formatting & reinstalling than going through & manually removing these problems.

 

[ohnnyj]

What Windows version are you using? If WinXP or 2000, a long format will completely wipe out everything. Make sure if you don't just install on top of the current installation. You could even delete the partitions you have first then recreate them, format, then install Windows.

And it may be that you did indeed get rid of them if you did do a format only you waited too long to patch the computer or install a firewall and/or virus scanning software. An unpatched Windows computer attached to the Internet can be compromised in under ten minutes. So patch it up to the latest security releases including SP2 and get the software installed immediately after you have all the patches and drivers working. What I would do after the initial install is download SP2 (if your CD does not have it and you have XP, otherwise if you have 2000 then get SP4, if you have ME, 98 SE, 98, etc. then upgrade), install it, download all the latest patches after reboot and install, then unconnect the computer. Install all the drivers that XP could not find (look in the Device Manager and look for all the devices with a yellow caution symbol next to them). Then install your firewall/virus scanning software (if you don't have any, get some), then connect back to the Internet.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

And that would always work? I have XP, but I am just looking for kind of general answers in the hopes someone would need this info. I have a Raptor & Data Lifeguard software so I would write the drive to 0's, but I know some people wouldn't be so lucky as to have the utility on disk before the drive was corrupted.

 

[ohnnyj]

I made an edit ^.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Excellent post. I will go another step further. Once you have downloaded SP2, then you should unhook the PC & update it (thanks BigLar for this tip). There are many ways to keep your PC safe and from the many posts I have read it seems using a router for a hardware firewall, combined with the Windows SP2 firewall, offers excellent protection when combined with a good AV package.

If you can try to download hard drive software and burn it to a disk or copy it to floppy in case you should ever need to use it. I hear the Maxtor software is not drive specific, meaning it can be used with WD, Seagate, Maxtor, Samsung, etc. It would be best to get something like this just in case .