formatting hard disks

[randomspout]

is it possible to competely erase a hard drive. I have a worm on the hard drive which formatting the hard disk will not remove.

i was under the impression that normal formatting just opens the whole hard disk to be written again - hence how data can be recovered even after formatting.

is it possible to completey erase the hard disk, i.e set all the bytes back to zero as this would probably get rid of my worm. i am aware that some companies have something to prevent the recovery of data even after formatting to prevent the spead of sensitive information.

does any1 no anything about this? could it be used on my worm?

 

[sjonnie]

Yes, it's called a low level format and can be done usually with the manufactuer's hard disk utility software.

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[randomspout]

Am running win xp. and have already tried repartitioning and formatting. will try a low level format - never no less u try.

 

[jammydodger]

What company makes your hard disk? I know western digital allow you to download a utility that creates a bootable floopy disk. When you boot with this disk it gives you the option of writing 0's to the entire drive, this should wipe everything. Dont know if thats helpfull.
I know that some virus' can hide in the firmware of a hard disk, which could be why formatting your hard disk isnt getting rid of the worm.

[Insert witty comment here]

 

[sjonnie]

Well actually, there is no way a worm is going to fit in his boot sector. A worm is a great big chunk of code that wriggles about and send emails and [-peep-]. A tiny boot sector virus just replicates itself in memory and copies itself into other boot sectors. A boot sector virus can also be cleared by simply overwriting the MBR, there's no need to actually write the whole disk out with zeros.

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[jammydodger]

Yeh sorry i dont know much about boot sector virus'...or virus' at all for that matter so i wasnt surem, thought it couldnt hurt to suggest it. But i thought writing the disk with 0's would get rid of any virus that is occupying that drive?

[Insert witty comment here]

 

[sjonnie]

Yep, a low level format will write 0 to every bit on the disk, including the boot sector so will naturally erase everything.

If you suspect you have a virus just do a Norton Scan, it's a lot quicker.

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