Hard Drive Formatting

[Serpentine]

I have an extreme virus/malware problem (if I send you a link through anything, don't open it unless accompanied by "this is definitely sent my me, Serpentine, not by the smelly virus people"). I've used various software (specifically Avast, Ad-Aware, RogueRemover and Spybot), which has helped a lot, but there's still stuff lingering and continually returning. It seems the best thing to do next is format my hard drive/s. Could someone please give me a detailed, step-by-step guide to doing so? For example, when I transfer stuff to my second hard drive, do I copy-paste or cut-paste/actually move it?

[La_Carnaval]

Ok, here are step by step instructions for formatting a hard drive, compliments of my friend.

Backing up data
-Get an external hard drive, plug it in to the USB port.
-Go to C:\Documents and Settings\yourname and find the My Documents folder
-Drag the entire folder from it's location on the C: to the external drive
-Have lunch

That will back up your documents. If there are other things that you want, such as Favorites for Internet Explorer, send me a PM and I will have my friend tell you where it all is.

Get Drivers
-Go online to the manufacturer of your computer and find the model
-Download all drivers for the computer and make a CD

Formatting the hard drive
-Put the CD containing the operating system in the CD tray
-Restart the computer
-There will be information at the bottom of the screen about setup or selecting a device (an F#), hit that key
-Go to boot device selection in the bios if that is where you are, or simply select the CD drive if you you have a screen with just device options.
-Boot from CD - Prompt: Press any key to boot from CD
-It will ask you where you would like to install the Operating System and will give you a list of formatting hard drive sectors
-Tell the computer to delete all partitions and format everything to NTFS (NOT quick format NTFS)
-Install the Operating System without the internet hooked up.
-Put the driver CD in the computer when the OS installation is complete and install all of the drivers
-Install any antivirus programs you have
-Install Microsoft Office if you have it
-Connect to the internet
-Go to Microsoft Windows update, do custom updates, install all available updates, restart
-Repeat the above step as often as necessary until there are no more updates available
-Install all remaining software

Voilà, you're finished!

[valadil]

You can format the disk from the windows installation CD. Just boot up the computer with windows in your CD drive and it should boot to the installer. The process isn't too complicated, just answer the questions and click next for 45 minutes.

Copy/paste vs cut/paste doesn't matter. I'd go with copy just to be safe (if the power goes out midway through a file you won't lose the cut stuff that way).

Just make sure you format the correct drive. You'd be amazed at how easy it is to hit the wrong one. Sometimes I unplug my spare drives during a reinstall just to prevent myself from accidentally erasing them.

--

Just to add to the previous poster's suggestion, download antivirus and burn that to the CD along with your drivers. Download updates if possible too. Install all that from CD before you even plug in your ethernet cable. I've seen machines get viruses in less time than it takes to install AVG free.

[Serpentine]

I was told that I could just keep stuff in my second hard drive, rather than an external one. Is that not so? And what about all my stuff not in the My Documents folder?
Oh, and thank you :smallsmile:

[valadil]

I was told that I could just keep stuff in my second hard drive, rather than an external one. Is that not so? And what about all my stuff not in the My Documents folder?
Oh, and thank you :smallsmile:

Second HD or external makes no difference. Just copy to one of them.

Copy/paste all the stuff that's not in my documents too. Don't bother with programs, you'll have to reinstall in your new windows anyway.

[Serpentine]

Things like Photoshop and Illustrator I'll want to transfer over, won't I? Just not the default ones, like Word? And is there anything I don't want to transfer over, lest it be infected?

[valadil]

I've never copied either of those over, so I'm not sure if they'll work. Office usually doesn't. Games usually do. Of course there's no harm in trying to copy over Photoshop and Illustrator and reinstalling them by CD if they don't work.

[RS14]

A few remarks:
Some laptops will have some sort of restore feature built in. For example, when I boot my laptop, I can press a special key, and it will give me the option of restoring it to factory conditions. This is probably preferable if available.
I'm not sure, but I'm under the impression that it is possible for the virus to infect one or more of your files and reinfect the restored system. You probably ought to install antivirus software before even reconnecting the device containing your files, and scan them before doing anything with them. This is also probably a good reason for using a external drive.
I'm almost certain that you will not be able to copy any programs over. Most (I can think of only four exceptions which I personally use) require modifying the registry, and will fail if simply copied.

[Quirinus_Obsidian]

Programs such as Word, Excel, Photoshop, games, stuff like that does not carry over to a new PC when Windows is reinstalled because of the Windows Registry. It is easiest and best to reinstall the applications. Also, that helps in the extreme case of those having infected files.

Backup all of your needed data to an external media. External Hard Drives are economical, huge, and work with virtually any kind of computer. CDs or DVDs are meh nowadays for backup reasons.

Good luck with the formatting. :smallbiggrin:

[FdL]

I tend to do more thorough backups than advised here.

I back up games saves and configuration files, bookmarks and other customizations for programs, mails, etc.

I make a checklist of the programs I had installed, and the driver versions for the most important hardware.

I also tend to make archive cds or dvds of stuff when I prepare for these. You realise that you don't use some stuff or you don't need it right there in your HD. But well, not evereyone is as methodical with backups as I am (ie, mp3s and video files, I get it most people just keep them in their HDs, I make tagged and numbered compilations on discs so I can easily find them later).

I'm careful so that when I reinstall it back everything is back to how it was. It sucks when you've just re-installed the OS and everything is empty, I feel like it's not my computer at all and it's quite depressing. So I don't format/reinstall unless critically required.

Last time when I upgraded the processor and MB I could manage to repair my OS installation, but I had prepared the backup in my second HD all the same. It sucks to lose all your stuff :s

[bluewind95]

I'll admit I kinda skipped over the replies, but...

I've had some issues with viruses too. The biggest problem with them is that, yeah, they tend to return even after they're deleted many times. There is a way to fix this, though. Windows keeps a sort of... system restore thingy. Disable that, and then remove the virus. Thing is, a virus will sometimes save itself there so after the antivirus removes it, it just comes back. But that should fix that. Maybe it will spare you from reformatting the harddrive?

Edit: A combination of Avast, HijackThis and Windows Explorer should help you rid yourself of a LOT of virus problems. Set Avast to tell you when it scans a file. When the virus executes, Avast, whether or not it recognizes it as a virus, will tell you the name of the file. Then it's a find-and-delete game using Windows Explorer and Hijack this. This, of course, after you disabled the system restore.

[Serpentine]

Windyblues, you might like to dumb that down a bit. At this rate I'm gonna sit here talking to Avast, "now, don't forget to tell me, will you?" Speaking of which, anyone else disappointed that it says in a heavy American accent, "Warning, a virus has been detected" instead of something like "aaaarr, there be a scurvy virus seadog to starboard!"?

If it helps, I might explain things a bit more: I have two internal hard drives (I don't own an external one). One of them is labelled "Entertainment" and contains all my games, movies, shows etc. The other is called "Utility" and contains everything else. I assume it's the Utility drive that's got the viruses. Hm... Oh geez. I haven't checked the other one at all *headdesk*
>goes to do so right now<

[bluewind95]

Whoops, sorry. :smalleek:

Okay. Well, if you right-click on the main Avast icon, then select On-Access protection control, and from there click on Details, then you select Standard Shield, and click on Customize, and from there, you can click on the Advanced tab and ask it to show you the detailed actions. That should have a little popup on the screen every time Avast scans something. What you're looking for is generally something started when you're doing nothing to the computer that also happens to be accessed at about the same time the symptoms of the virus. You'll see a TON of stuff in there, especially if you open a program. So anything that looks suspicious, write it down. Those kinds of files can and will often be in Windows folders. Then you can either look them up on the internet to check if they're a virus or just delete them. Avast should tell you where they are. Now, if they won't let you delete them... that calls for Windows Safe Mode.

[Serpentine]

That's more like it. Thanks :smallsmile: I'm running Avast on both my hard drives. Nothing yet, but then it's only up to 7%...

[Serpentine]

Avast didn't seem to find anything really useful, but it did come up with a whole lot of "Unable to scan"s. Most of these are in Spybot's "Recovery" folder (had to make my computer show me hidden files to see it), and are definitely at least of the same name as the viruses (e.g. AntiSpyCheck #s 1-9, ZlobDownloader #s 1-16, etc). Can I, and is there any point in, deleting these files? And out of curiosity, would anything happen if I opened one of them?
edit: Never mind, Spybot has a "Purge" option. I've purged everything except something called Win32.BJO.je, because I don't know what it is. The Recovery folder still has that and one Zlob file, though.

[Vagnarok]

whenever I reformat, I tend to only save exactly what I need (important word docs, images that can't be replaced, and other small misc stuff). Then I scrub both of my drives completely without doing a full backup. I do this because some viruses/trojans like to hide themselves in your stuff, disguised as files that they replaced and took the name of.

Then I put in my windows CD and reformat during the reinstall process. And finally I download and reinstall my other programs.