[SOLVED] Infected HDD Needs fixing

[crasher046832]

Here is the backstory. My Moms bf decided to download an "Antivirus" and as usual, a virus spread on the laptop. I tried to format the disk but I couldn't select the proper volume for the drive. I cant install windows because the drive apparently has 0 bytes free on the drive. I know that this is the malware interfering with the installation so I cannot format the drive. I'm too afraid to put the infected drive into one of my other PCs to see if it still even works because I don't want to risk the virus spreading to another hard drive, for now I'm using an older drive that is slower but I want to fix this drive so I have full speed again. If there's no solution to this problem, no biggie but it would be preferred. Thanks!

Here's the HDD:
HGST Z5K500-500
HTS545050A7E380

 

[lvt]

You can temporarily connect the HDD to your other computer and use a disk partition tool to delete the current partition to reclaim the space then format it as usual.

Virus (if any) won't automatically jump from disk to disk like an insect unless you execute an infected software.

 

[BFG-9000]

This doesn't make any sense. You don't need to format a drive before installing Windows--just blow away all partitions and point the installer at the unpartitioned, unformatted empty space.

And I don't see why available space would matter unless you were for some reason trying to install Windows from the Windows desktop of the infected computer. If you were doing that, it would also explain why you can't select the system disk to format, as Windows does not allow that.

Nope, the correct way to install Windows clean is to boot from the Windows installation media, which is free to download but you'll need either a 8GB-32GB USB stick, or a blank double-layer DVD to boot from. It contains all of the disk partitioning tools you should need. Obviously, use another, clean PC to make the media.

 

[crasher046832]

You can temporarily connect the HDD to your other computer and use a disk partition tool to delete the current partition to reclaim the space then format it as usual.

Virus (if any) won't automatically jump from disk to disk like an insect unless you execute an infected software.

Ill try That

 

[ohio_buckeye]

Don’t do that.

On your clean pc, use the windows 10 media creation tool to create a bootable usb.
Install the hard drive into the pc and leave it and maybe the dvd drive as the only drives plugged in.

Boot the pc from your windows usb you created on the clean pc. During the setup, delete all of the partitions on the hard drive and the setup should be able to erase everything that way and get windows installed on the drive.

 

[crasher046832]

I ran into another problem. now the hdd isn't being detected anywhere, whether it is in bios or disk part.