I have a question concerning viruses. I have had viruses in the past, and I have always just reformatted when really necessary to wipe them off my hard drive. Someone told me that this does not always get rid of them, and that sometimes you have to perform a low-level format to get them all the way off. I kinda think he's full of it, but I thought I might ask someone else. Also, are there any viruses currently that will attack your bios? I guess my bottom line question is, does it remove all viruses when you reformat?

Hiya, I had to formatt recenty due to the yahak virus, my puter was still under warrenty from dell so I called them up to tell them and this nice chap from texas said if you had trouble's with virus, that you should write zero's to the drive before formatting, which we did. Have had not had a problem since. adrian

Reformatting alone does not get rid of all viruses. If its a boot sector virus it can infect the floppy you use to reinstall you Operating System. I have used data recovery software that can show you everything that was on your hard drive even after regular formatting. Writing zeros to the entire hard is a good practice because it replaces what was there.

so writing zero's to the hard drive is the same as a low-level format I believe right? This usually takes a month of sundays to perform though. I guess I am at a loss to realize how a virus can live through a format.

It doesn't remain on the hard drive as an in-tact file. The information may be resident if you don't do a low-level format but it isn't considered a "file" anymore and can't be run. The danger can exist when your BIOS can be infected with a virus or, as mentioned, you use some floppy disk that has a virus on it. But if you format, you don't have to worry about the virus coming back from the dead and reinfecting your system.

Thanks, that's what I needed to know. Once I reformat, barring putting the virus back on from a different source (like a floppy or transfering it back on from somewhere else) the virus is inoperable. So how likely is it that your bios will get infected? Is it rare?

Ya it's rare. I have only seen it 1 time.