Does formatting the hard drive remove viruses

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Include archived documents. Why you should reformat your hard drive and reinstall Windows after your computer is infected with a virus For many virus , worm, or Trojan computer infections, the UITS Support Center or University Information Security Office UISO will instruct you to reformat your hard drive erase Windows and reinstall Windows from scratch, even if your antivirus program or other antiviral tools can remove the virus or delete the infection.

Following are examples: W JI mm W WON W The researchers added that attackers infect their victims by methods such as physical media like CD-ROMs, USB sticks and exploits, web-based exploits, and Fanny self-replicating worm code. Another interesting attack targeted Firefox 17 that was being used as a Tor browser; it used an unknown exploit.

Kaspersky Lab gave an example of attacks that could be delivered via Java exploits to advertisements on popular Middle East websites as well as by visiting specific Islamic jihadist discussion forums; a PHP script, which was designed to work as part of the commercial forum platform vBulletin, exploited only forum visitors who were logged in; additionally those authenticated users had to come from specific IP address ranges.

Smith not her real name is a freelance writer and programmer with a special and somewhat personal interest in IT privacy and security issues. Here are the latest Insider stories. More Insider Sign Out. Sign In Register. Sign Out Sign In Register. Formatting allows you to change the OS of your computer easily.

Although there are methods that allow you to change your OS without formatting, it is much easier just to format the computer, and install a new OS. The shortcut to format a hard drive partition in Windows system is to right-click on the partition and click Format.

The picture below depicts the format function in the Disk management window. To go there, follow the steps given below:. Type Disk Management in the Search tab. In Mac systems, the process is similar. Read this Apple support article to understand the formatting process in Mac systems. Now that we have discussed the attributes of formatting, let us find out if formatting is effective.

It is hard to argue that formatting doesn't delete the files in your computer. After all, the deleted files appear to be gone, space, where they existed, becomes free.

In reality, the formatted data vanishes from immediate view. These files are still present in your computer and they can be recovered, and restored to their original state.

It is possible because when you format or delete a file, the OS of your computer removes the references of these files on existing file systems. This is different from permanent erasure, which involves overwriting these files. This is the reason, your deleted files remain intact in your computer or any other storage media unless new data overwrites it.