Will new hard drive cure virus problems?

buyitall

Hi,
My laptop picked up a virus last week which I have tried to fix, but don't think it has gone completely. I had some great advice from this forum, but then had to go away for the weekend before it was completely sorted out. I am writing this from my son's laptop as I am too scared to turn mine on!

Anyway, I had planned to replace the hard drive before the virus probs started (I have already bought a new drive and used the free WD Acronis True Image software to make a backup copy of the existing drive - the backup copy is now about 2 months old because I hadn't got round to replacing the drive, and I am confident the laptop was clean when I made the copy).

My question is - could the virus be anywhere else on my laptop other than on the hard drive? Sorry if it's a stupid question but I don't want to replace the hard drive and then find that the virus is lurking elsewhere. It would be great if replacing the hard drive, which I want to do anyway, would also solve the virus issue.
Thanks for any advice.

Ocentric

Yes, removing you hard drive should be fine. Make sure that you don't have a memory slot card in like an SD card ( the kind that you get in cameras).

Another thing you could try is a boot CD which has a virus scanner on it, this is more likely to remove the virus from your existing hard drive. I would say replacing a harddrive for a virus is a bit extreme, but if it give you peace of mind then go for it. :-)

JJ_Egan

Big but if you copy stuff off the old drive onto the new drive you may copy the virus over .
An older pre virus image would be safe but not stuff after that thats still on the drive .

Their is no other resource bar the hard drive for files .

Once you have the new drive working and installed then a full format of the old drive will render it fit for use and virus free or even using a tool like eraser .

jje

RussJK

If you were going to replace the HDD anyway, then I'd want to make sure the backup image was virus free. As another said, bootdisk antivirus scanners will be useful (https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/41653210#Comment_41653210) but will take time.

If it was me, I'd format & reinstall from scratch to get a secure temporary base to test the backup drive:
1. get it secure as early as possible: Trial version of F-Secure (best AV of 2010), Malwarebytes pro (if you have it), hosts protection (Hostsman + malware domains list), firewall with Comodo or Online Armor, and sandboxie.
2. turn off autoruns
3. Scan the external backup using an excessive array of tools: Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, your virus scanner on highest settings, SuperAntiSpyware portable, Comodo Cleaning Essentials, AVZ, NoVirusThanks malware scanner, etc.

If it checks out, then you can happily swap them. It won't matter about using a trial version of an antivirus since you are going to swap the hard drives anyway.