Reformatting and Viruses

[Andrew D. Gable]

My sister's about to get a new computer, and will likely pass on the old one to my mom. However, the old one's riddled with viruses, and she was thinking of reformatting first. Will a reformat destroy the viruses?

 

[drothgery]

My sister's about to get a new computer, and will likely pass on the old one to my mom. However, the old one's riddled with viruses, and she was thinking of reformatting first. Will a reformat destroy the viruses?

Yes (unless you've got multiple hard drives, or multiple partitions on the same drive, and don't reformat all of them). You'll want to have a copy of the latest service pack for your OS burned onto a CD or memory card or something, so that you can get your computer mostly up-to-date before connecting the computer to the Internet (or better yet, make an OS CD with the latest patches slipstreamed in, though that's a bit complex).

 

[cybertalus]

It's also a very good idea before reformatting to note down all of your installed hardware and have drivers saved away somewhere. Even if you're using one of those factory restore CDs they sometimes don't reinstall all the drivers.

Oh, and make sure your sister gets a good anti-virus program for her new machine.

 

[Zepherus Bane]

If possible, make sure to update to a current version of whatever OS you were using too. For instance, if the machine had windows 98, after you format the hard disk you may want to consider upgrading to windows 2000 or XP. No matter what you do win98 won't be secure if an attacker has enough time. If "mom" is only using a dial up account and rarely gets online you might be OK for a while, but otherwise don't even think about using the old OS.

 

[Jhamin]

Reformatting will wipe out 99% of all viruses. A simple reformat will still leave boot sector viruses in place. (Granted, these are pretty unusual these days but still).
To get all of them you will have to repartition the drive.

If you don't know/arn't comfortable with partitions, I would leave well enough alone. You are probably fine with just a reformat.

 

[Henry]

if you are reinstalling Windows XP, the repartitioning would be easy, because there is a one-key command (C, or is it D? I believe) to delete the partition, and create a new one. Repartitioning is the absolute surest method to remove any and all viruses. If using Windows 98, it's best to look up how to repartition from a technical web site or check with a professional computer repair company if in doubt.