Hey guys,
I'm looking at a friends computer and it's so full of spyware and viruses that I told her I'll do a format and reinstall of the OS. (All the data she has on the computer she can afford to lose and it's in such bad shape I think it's hopeless to try and remove all the junk).

Question is will this remove everything bad (spyware, virus, etc...) or can some of these things hide from a format and clean OS install ?

Thanks.

Basically yes....a format from the Windows Disk (Quick Format) should do the trick.

For a totally wiped harddrive, and I mean TOTALLY, go to Active@KillDisk and download either the floppy drive version, or if you know how to burn a CD ISO image (a bootable CD) you can do that from here.

It totally cleans out your harddrive; it takes a while, but nothing is left behind.

AJ

Unnecessary to wipe it with secure deletion tools.

Just a normal disk formatting.

It will erase everything on the disk. None of that can hide from a format.

I have just finished destructive reinstall myself(reformats b4 installing). But that doesn't cure everything. You still have an operator that needs to practice safe browsing habits(you said it was full not just 1 or 2). Have your friend read through these forums once, in particular some of the pinned guides & topics related to security & browsing. Try to avoid reinstalling everything again. Do it slowly. Install a program, see how computer works for a few days. If its fine, reinstall another program. If any of the programs to be reinstalled are P2P, then there is no point in heeding this advice. I reinstalled because of a program that changed some settings that it should not have been able to change, fan settings, and wanted to make sure everything else that it may have changed unknowingly by me was back as it should be. I like my equipment running top notch.

Yeah, or hit your friend on the head with a big fat cluestick.

Security 101.