DarkLogan Posted November 4, 2008 Report Share Posted November 4, 2008 I figured it out. When you format a drive does it kill trojans and virus'. Also when you have a western digital hard drive it has an option to write zeros to it so that it basically puts the drive back to the state it was in when you bought it using a floppy with tools. Can other drives do that same thing ?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-pops- Posted November 4, 2008 Report Share Posted November 4, 2008 A "full format" SHOULD remove unwanted items like viruses and trojans but, remember that these little devils are designed to be difficult and it may be that formatting will not achieve what you want. A quick format will certainly not remove these things - all a quick format does is remove the identifiers from files so that Windows cannot see them correctly - most of the content remains.All hard drives can be low level formatted - that is filling with zeros but, don't rely on this absolutely to be able to remove everything. It is the nature of the magnetic medium of a hard drive that there is a "remanence" effect where faint traces of previous writing can remain even after a number of overwrites. This cannot be easily read with normal computer equipment but the security authorities and the like can do it without much problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkLogan Posted November 4, 2008 Author Report Share Posted November 4, 2008 A "full format" SHOULD remove unwanted items like viruses and trojans but, remember that these little devils are designed to be difficult and it may be that formatting will not achieve what you want. A quick format will certainly not remove these things - all a quick format does is remove the identifiers from files so that Windows cannot see them correctly - most of the content remains.All hard drives can be low level formatted - that is filling with zeros but, don't rely on this absolutely to be able to remove everything. It is the nature of the magnetic medium of a hard drive that there is a "remanence" effect where faint traces of previous writing can remain even after a number of overwrites. This cannot be easily read with normal computer equipment but the security authorities and the like can do it without much problem.Ok i got that trojan.vundo and did a full format. I'm not sure if i got it right away again or not but norton seems to think so. Can you give a recommendation ?? Maybe format it again or something. Or buy another drive lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boris Posted November 4, 2008 Report Share Posted November 4, 2008 Use the free version of Active KilldiskDetailsFree Version............. if you want to be sure that the drive is erased thoroughly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boris Posted November 4, 2008 Report Share Posted November 4, 2008 After you've used Active@ KillDisk to be able to use the HDD again you need to:Repartition the hard drive using a standard DOS utility like FDISK.Reformat partitions using a standard DOS utility like FORMAT.(If required) reinstall an Operating System using a bootable CD-ROM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkLogan Posted November 4, 2008 Author Report Share Posted November 4, 2008 After you've used Active@ KillDisk to be able to use the HDD again you need to:Repartition the hard drive using a standard DOS utility like FDISK.Reformat partitions using a standard DOS utility like FORMAT.(If required) reinstall an Operating System using a bootable CD-ROM.After you use Active KillDisk you cant just toss in your xp cd and let it format and partition for you ??I did get rid of the trojan this time. Any reason why it wont let me get my windows updates. It will d/l them but when it goes to install it says failed everytime Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-pops- Posted November 4, 2008 Report Share Posted November 4, 2008 Have you activated (registered) your new installation? If not, that may be the reason you are unable to update. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkLogan Posted November 4, 2008 Author Report Share Posted November 4, 2008 Have you activated (registered) your new installation? If not, that may be the reason you are unable to update.Says its activated. Think it may be a bad install ?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-pops- Posted November 4, 2008 Report Share Posted November 4, 2008 Have you gone through the procedure of activating or is it just telling you that?Is it a full retail XP disk you are installing from? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkLogan Posted November 4, 2008 Author Report Share Posted November 4, 2008 Have you gone through the procedure of activating or is it just telling you that?Is it a full retail XP disk you are installing from?Yea its activated. The error code says my pc keeps getting up to 100% and that its causing a com+ error and thats why it wont d/l I have no clue what that is but microsoft said i have to allow com+ or something like that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb Posted November 5, 2008 Report Share Posted November 5, 2008 The error code says my pc keeps getting up to 100% and that its causing a com+ errorCan you give us the exact error message you are getting? 100% what - CPU usage? If so, what process is using the CPU (Task Manager; Processes tab)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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