Computer newbies forum: I'm a computer newb, does reformating remove virus' and..

computer start up showing whether the virus effected my bios

by ali g 123 - 1/28/08 11:19 PM

In Reply to: Maybe, unless the virus has effected the BIOs by Dango517

thank you, and also, how would i know it effects the bios when i start it up?

Was this reply helpful? (0) (0)

Staff pick

Correction I was wrong.

by Dango517 - 2/4/08 12:29 AM

In Reply to: Maybe, unless the virus has effected the BIOs by Dango517

After the above responce (post 3) I decided to double check it. This was the responce to my thread "Can viruses be removed from the BIOs?", on the security forum.

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6132_102-0.html?forumID=32&threadID=281792&messageID=2691390

Was this reply helpful? (0) (0)

Staff pick

Long Discussion About A While Back In Virus/Security Forum

by Grif Thomas - 1/29/08 7:40 PM

In Reply to: I'm a computer newb, does reformating remove virus' and.. by ali g 123

The answer is YES, depending on the type of virus it is.. It's been discussed a number of times. Here's the link:

Can any virus survive reformatting the hard drive?

Hope this helps.

Grif

Was this reply helpful? (0) (0)

Staff pick

Does reformatting remove viruses

by d.arbib - 2/1/08 5:56 PM

In Reply to: Long Discussion About A While Back In Virus/Security Forum by Grif Thomas

In principle, I agree with others, that it will remove viruses on re-formatting, but in my experience I have found residual bits on the drive which can cause difficities. So generally I completly wipe the disk to a raw state using the free cversion of KillDisk

Was this reply helpful? (0) (0)

Staff pick

virus vs reformat

by guywayne - 2/1/08 8:07 PM

In Reply to: I'm a computer newb, does reformating remove virus' and.. by ali g 123

Reformatting should take care of it, 99 44/100% of the time anyway. More secure than just the reformat would be to wipe the disk clean with something like DBaN, this will keep you from resurrecting chunks of data later with unerase or even chkdsk. Of course, safe computing up front will stop you from needing to wipe the disk again in the future. Use a limited account where you can, run a good anti-virus, anti-malware and firewall -and don't click where you shouldn't- and you should't get stung with virii, keyloggers and other nasties.

Was this reply helpful? (0) (0)

Staff pick

Went to respond to you for reformatting is the easy way but

by darclew3-22158275752580621622974417352656 - 2/3/08 5:39 AM

In Reply to: virus vs reformat by guywayne

I haven't looked at your system. All my info to reinstall are on zip drives plus some CD's I also use. The same I can use DVD+/-RW for they hold a lot and can be reformated. I have 6 of those and one 100mb zip that are blank. Having Windows XP Home Edition, it has a different format (ntfs) versus Fat32, Fat16 but there is something called a killdisk that will wipe out all formats.
www.killdisk(dot)com and it can be put onto a CD-R. It is the free edition I am using, only thing it will leave behind is your setup screen. It will clean an entire hard drive like my Western Digital 40.01 DBAN will only be used on NTFS only. Kill disk is quicker and you don't need a floppy or type in nofloppy
I have used it 7 times in two weeks for I had gotten a lousy DSL setup and now using something that gives me nearly 87% free space. (dot) is the period on the link. Darrell

Was this reply helpful? (0) (0)

Staff pick

not all virus can be remove by formating

by xhanis - 2/4/08 12:06 AM

In Reply to: I'm a computer newb, does reformating remove virus' and.. by ali g 123

hey there,

i read your problem and understand that even if you formatting your hard drive cannot kill the virus especially when the virus are very hard to move anyway you must also check either your other removeable storage are infected with virus if yes it just be a waste of time to do it again (formatting hard drive).

make sure to scan with antivirus program check if the any harmful virus in your storage

that all

Was this reply helpful? (0) (0)

Staff pick

Reformating may not remove virus's

by kishor565 - 2/6/08 10:00 PM

In Reply to: I'm a computer newb, does reformating remove virus' and.. by ali g 123

Rescently I faced a virus named "funny UST scandal.avi" which made me scruffy. To protect my pc I generally updates my avast anti virus. But the avast failed to remove that virus.then the first thing i did is formatting.(Ofcourse the virus not allowed me to format drives from windows,I did format through MS-DOS)Even i format my entair system the virus is reappeared.Then atlast I partetioned my hard disk and got rid of that virus.

Was this reply helpful? (0) (0)

Staff pick

can we know the method on how to remove the virus you said

by xhanis - 2/7/08 8:35 AM

In Reply to: Reformating may not remove virus's by kishor565

it is unclear for me to say but can you show a tip on how to remove the virus maybe some of us are encountering this even i also had some time problem with the stubborn virus

maybe this wiil relieve some tension for me as well

Was this reply helpful? (0) (0)

Staff pick

Partitioning to remove virus

by kishor565 - 2/8/08 1:08 AM

In Reply to: can we know the method on how to remove the virus you said by xhanis

Thank you for mailing me.
I told that I had partitioned my entire drives to remove virus.You should know that partitioning will remove entire data in your hard disk. Let us see how to partition ...
1.First of all you need is a fresh copy of windows(XP/vista) operating system.Insert OS disk in your cd/dvd drive and reboot.While booting it asks you whether you want to install a fresh copy of OS.Press yes and then you will see your partitioned drives(C;D;E;F). 2.Select any partition and press 'd' to remove that partition. Like that delete all partitions including the drive in which you've installed OS in past(generally C:drive).
3.Ok! Now you deleted all partitions and thus you lost entire data presented in your hard disk.
4.Now if you want to create again partitions,select unpartitioned drive and press 'c'. You will see a menu to write size of memory in MBs to create a partition.Write size depending upon your hard disk size and number of partitions you want to create(generally keep 10240 or more for installing OS on any one partition).Thus you have created fresh partitions.
5.Select any one partition and press 'f' to format it and proceed OS installation in that partition.
I never supposed doing partitions even for less harmful viruses since partitioning will delete entire data on you hard disk.
Mail me if you have doubtsThank you for mailing me.
I told that I had partitioned my entire drives to remove virus.You should know that partitioning will remove entire data in your hard disk. Let us see how to partition ...
1.First of all you need is a fresh copy of windows(XP/vista) operating system.Insert OS disk in your cd/dvd drive and reboot.While booting it asks you whether you want to install a fresh copy of OS.Press yes and then you will see your partitioned drives(C;D;E;F). 2.Select any partition and press 'd' to remove that partition. Like that delete all partitions including the drive in which you've installed OS in past(generally C:drive).
3.Ok! Now you deleted all partitions and thus you lost entire data presented in your hard disk.
4.Now if you want to create again partitions,select unpartitioned drive and press 'c'. You will see a menu to write size of memory in MBs to create a partition.Write size depending upon your hard disk size and number of partitions you want to create(generally keep 10240 or more for installing OS on any one partition).Thus you have created fresh partitions.
5.Select any one partition and press 'f' to format it and proceed OS installation in that partition.
I never supposed doing partitions even for less harmful viruses since partitioning will delete entire data on you hard disk.
Mail me if you have doubts yet.Thank you!

Was this reply helpful? (0) (0)

Staff pick