Formatt xp hard drive

dan2002

hi all found a free program call (killdisk) the basic program is free and it deleted the full hard drive and reformatted it and then I reinstalled xp and have shut down and restarted a few times each time running a virus check and (touch wood) looks like I have got rid of this virus thanks all

Bonecracker

IvanOpinion wrote:

Life used to be so much easier when you simply did a low level format of a hard disk.

If only this were true, but a low level format usually caused more problems.

dan2002

hi as I said I have been trying for the last 3 days to get a virus out of the computer which would not let me format ,yes I did try everything from rebooting in dos to just using the xp disc,to booting up using a 98 boot up disc nothing worked until I tryed (killdisk) and within 1 1/2 hours the computer was reformatted and xp in stalled ,it worked for me but we all know it may not work for everyone

IvanOpinion

Bonecracker wrote:

If only this were true, but a low level format usually caused more problems.

Are youtalking of the (sometimes) dubious utilities that manufacturers used or the use of the 'debug' BIOS call that used to built into the old MFM hard disk controllers (haven't used it in over 15 years you had to fire up debug and then type in something like 'g=c800:5' .. don't try this though, modern hard disks worked differently)

Ivan

alandoc

What's the name of the virus - it should be much easier to remove thevirus than re-formatting.

dan2002

hi all the virus was a (win32bettlnet) and very hard to get rid of ,as for the program I use to format the computer all I had to do was download a small program to make a bootup floppy ,this can will then be deleted,you turn of computer and boot up with the floppy ,it will then offer you what you want to delete ,if you have 2 hard drives it will offer which one you want to delete and warn you what you are about to do,and within 40 mins your hard drive is wiped clean,I tryed this and it has now saved me buying a new harddrive as I was going out today to get one as it had p*** me off trying to delete that virus

Bonecracker

IvanOpinion wrote:

Are youtalking of the (sometimes) dubious utilities that manufacturers used or the use of the 'debug' BIOS call that used to built into the old MFM hard disk controllers (haven't used it in over 15 years you had to fire up debug and then type in something like 'g=c800:5' .. don't try this though, modern hard disks worked differently)

Ivan

Sounds like someones been googling to me.

Usually a low level format should only ever be performed as a last resort because you can actually ruin the FAT and have major problems on a reinstall.

chunter

Fdisk?????

Bonecracker

chunter wrote:

Fdisk?????

I usually swear at my PC aswell

XP doesnt support Fdisk or yep the drive partition could have been deleted and then a re-creation of a drive then a format of that drive then a reinstall of the OS but I think we are on about XP?

Kevicho

Have you tried running the virus scans in safe mode?

That way the virus shouldnt have a chance to load itself while the scan is running