Spyware, viruses, & security forum: Can any virus survive reformatting the hard drive?

First, a high level format does not over write much of anything, which is why you can do that and with the proper tools extract almost anything you want.

A better method is to use a hard drive eraser util, find one with google. 'Autoclave' maybe.

Perhaps your tech is referring to HPA, host protected area.

Find it with google, good bed time reading.

How will we be able to clean the workstations on a network if it has already spread?? Any suggestion on to do it without formatting? please I realy need an answer

if the entire space of the drive is zero filled, no, it cannot survive, but if there is a partition, then, it is possible.

fdisk /mbr worked for me. My son picked up a few problems downloading songs and infected the whole home network. After MANY attempts to reinstall the OS, a friend of mine told me to try this,,,,, never had the problem again. Get anti-virus software (I use Norton) and get daily updates from the web page. Also a firewall or in our case the router helps also!

Try to find out first if it is really infected:

It is always recommended to disconnect any system from the network while in the process of disinfecting.

Do not modify, open or save anything if there is an infection.

Turn off the system instead of shutdown to prevent any malware in modifying or creating new processes or startup items (some malware renames itself or replicate each time Windows restarted or shutdown)

Boot the infected system using rescue disk instead of booting from hard-disk. Doing this will prevent the malware in running (hopefully)

Use an uninfected system to download the following:

TrendMicros' Sysclean Package - it will terminate all malware instances in memory, remove malware registry entries, remove malware entries from system files and scan for and delete all malware copies in all local hard drives. Read the readme_sysclean.txt on how to use it.

Stinger

Use those tools to scan the system for malware or infection.

Do not turn off System Restore (if enabled and if you are using an OS that has this feature) until the system is cleaned.

Create a backup of important files and datas regularly.

Trend Micro's PC-Cillin had a good review on CNet (or somewhere), the review said that Trend Micro's software is better than Symantec or McAfee.

But if you ever do a DOS format again, may I suggest the Format command with the /U switch. The U means Unconditional. A friend of my Son-In-Law told me that erases everything.

If you have a Western Digital Hard Drive, you can use the floppy diskette that comes in the retail box. There is a utility on that diskette that writes zeros to the entire drive. It takes a while, and I'm pretty sure it writes zeros the boot sectors also. You can contact Western Digital and ask the techs that question.

good luck.

If you remove Partitions
Then Format the recommended 3 seperate occasions
The chances are very remote
However there are now Prgs. which wipe your disc entirely to remove Data one of these would also serve your purpose.

The LLF was frequently done in the good old days with older hard drive. You can not do an LLF on new hard drives. Only the manufacturer is capable of doing so. However, LLF has been replace by zero-fill and is better than LLF. It writes zeros to every sector and will remove any nasty things. BUT you have to do so for every physical hard drive and every partition. Also as wisely mentioned by others, if you stick an old CD, DVD, of floppy you recorded and it was infected - back she comes! Safest thing is to run the DOS format command (C:>format "drive letter") then erase the MBR (Master Boot Record) by C:>format /mbr. Then run any of the many utilities that do a zero-fill from a boot floppy or CD. Be sure your BIOS is set to boot from hard drive first, then CD, then floppy or you will never see these devices after formatting. These utilities are numerous and can be found via a Google search.

First, the question is: what kind of formatting are we talking about? I can assure that NO VIRUS written for PC can survive a partition deletion, followed by a complete low-level format.- Even if you don't wipe remaining data, and even if the string of the virus may remain on any sector, (supposing you don't perform a zero-writing on the hole drive after formatting), it can't be a threat, even if a virus scanner detects it, it doesn't have chance to execute itself because it remains as that, as any string of data not wiped, waiting to be overwritten any time by disk usage.-

To conclude: if "surviving", applied to PC software viruses, means "existing in the disk", the answer to the question would be "yes, it can survive a format".- If surviving means "existing as a potential threat", the answer is NO.-

Here's the deal: create a boot floppy with format, sys.com, and fdisk on it. Scan it with a virus checker to make sure it is clean and free of boot sector viruses. Take it out and set the write protect tab. Turn the computer OFF (clears RAM and clears on-drive disk cache). Boot the machine from the floppy (may require changing boot order in the BIOS screens). Run FDISK /MBR; this cleans and resets the boot sector of the hard drive. Note that boot loader and extended BIOS utilities will die, so you'll have to reinstall things like Toshiba's manager, WD, Maxtor, etc/ xbios utilities. If you do, make sure you virus scan the disks from which you will be running these utilities before you start this process. Turn the computer OFF. Run FDISK and create (a) new bootable partition(s) (primary, DOS)on the hard drive. Turn the computer OFF. Reboot from floppy and FORMAT /s the new partition. Change the boot order in the BIOS and boot from the hard drive, then install whatever OS from CD. The drive map structure so created cannot have any executable virus code unless your virus checker was not up to date and the boot floppy or disk utility disks had viruses that the checker did not find.

If you are concerned with bit patterns on the hard drive that reflect data that used to be on it, for business security reasons, that is a different issue. To eliminate such patterns, you do need to run a sector overwrite utility that alternates ones and zeroes on successive passes. DoD requires a very large number of passes, depending on the security level of the data. As a practical alternative, Steve Gibson's Spinrite left running overnight on highest level deep pattern testing will vaporize low-level magnetic remnant patterns if done after the ones and zeroes overwrite mentioned above. If you have OCD, throw the drive in a barrel with a hand grenade and buy a new one.

The answer is : PERHAPS
But there is one thing NO viruses can survive : The removal of the primary DOS partition of a hard drive.
Using the FDISK command , remove any and ALL partitions of a hard drive including the primary partition. What is left is a dumb piece of metal that holds NO data nor viruses. Using the same FDISK utility, recreate your partitions and you can be certain that you have a clean hard disk.
Toscane

Have you ever tried to delete a non-windows partition with fdisk?, Other operating systems create partitions that fdisk does not erases, modifies & in some cases doesn't even see them, as an example: Linux creates partitions like: Minix, ext2, ext3, swap, etc., Solaris (Sun Unix Operating system) creates Solaris Partitions & so on.

So, if anyone thinks that Fdisk will solve any virus problem he is completly wrong, because there can exist things that Fdisk does not manage.

Now, low level format is done only by the manufacturer of the disk, not by users, the best solution is to use a wipeing tool from the disk manufacturer, it wipes the hole HD (most of it) writing zero's no matter what OS the hard drive has on it or types of partitions, then you can Fdisk, MBR, format your HD, to install again Your OS & Software.

Another tip: Fdisk only writes the two first sectors of a hard drive, the first one holds the partition(s) data (Do not get confused with the partition itself) it just holds the way the hard drive is partitioned & the second one holds master boot sector (do not get confused with the OS boot sector) it just holds the code that looks on the drive for an Operating system to boot it, if any data is writen after that two sectors, fdisk does not overwrite them, fdisk /MBR does just the same, that's why you must Zero (wipe) your disk before using Fdisk & format.

Hope this can help you or anyone else.

I have a Dell Dimension 8100 which is now 4 1/2yrs old.
This computer does a system crash every 3-4wks. So in the time I have owned it you can compute how many re-installs I have done.
I sanitize my HD before doing a 'clean re-install'. I do it as follows:
1. go into the BIOS and move CD drive to the first
position. Then I disable HD and FDD.
2. to sanitize I use "Wipe Drive" from Access Data
(accessdata.com) this is one of many DOD type of
disk cleaning programs. I set the program to do
seven overwrite passes, then I go to sleep as it
takes all night, about 20hrs, okay sometimes I
cant wait so I only set the program for three
passes which takes about four hrs, I think.
3. when this is done I go back into the BIOS and
enable the HD and FDD.
4. next I re-install my OS which reformats the hard
drive before re-installing the OS(Windows 2000
Pro)
Just a side note, my Apple IMac G4 17" flat panel has
not crashed in the three years I have owned it and it
was $2300.00 versus my Dell which was $2600.00, my Apple has a bigger HD, firewire, usb ports, flat panel
screen and super combo drive which burns CDs and DVDs. The Apple costs less, does more and seems to be totally stable.
So much for Dell, Intel and M$.
Good luck, bob t

If you delete the partion(s), and recreate same before formatting drive(s), you will have no problems!

Just formatting the drive(s) is not enough...you must start with a clean boot, when you reinstall any OS!