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Posted by Tom on March 30, 2008, 12:11 pm
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~BD~ wrote:
> In this article http://www.claymania.com/panic.html it says:-
>
> You have probably come to this page because your computer is not working
> properly. You may have heard that things named computer viruses can cause
> computers to act abnormally, and now you think you have a virus. Before you
> go ahead...
>
> Do NOT panic!!
>
> This is very important. Having a virus basically means that there is a
> program on your computer that doesn't belong there. It's this simple, so
> really there is no need to panic. In fact, a panicking user can be much more
> dangerous than any virus! Users often cause more damage while attempting to
> exterminate a virus than the virus itself could ever have caused.
>
> Panic may cause a user to do two very silly things: formatting and using
> FDisk.
>
> Formatting
> You may have overheard rumors according to which there is an infallible
> method to get rid of a virus, namely formatting. Formatting is a process
> that effectively removes all data stored on a medium (although that is not
> its actual purpose), including any virus.
> Well, don't fall for this myth. It's not always true. In fact, it may work,
> but formatting is generally a bad idea for several reasons:
> a.. Formatting is in most cases absolutely unnecessary. Most viruses can
> be removed quite easily.
> b.. Formatting and reinstalling the operating system and all applications
> is time consuming.
> c.. Data loss will occur if you forget to back up your data before wiping
> everything.
> d.. Format may remove everything except the virus.
> FDisk
> Some of you may even have heard about a miraculous tool named Fdisk
> (generally in connection with so-called "boot sector viruses" or the MBR).
> The MBR is a small sector on your hard disk that contains a small program
> and partition information. The truth about Fdisk is that it can be useful,
> but its use can also result in data loss. If you don't know exactly which
> virus you are dealing with, Fdisk can be very destructive!! Fdisk is
> definitely not an anti-virus tool, so don't use it.
> _____________________________________________________________________________
>
> As I said in the title "I've done both of these 'silly things'!", so
> .........
>
> I am particularly interested in /this/ statement therein:-
>
> "Format may remove everything *except* the virus".
>
> I'd be most grateful if someone will explain this to me. TIA
> --
> Dave
>
>
>
Simple really, Format doesn't write very much to your disk at all.
It puts a Hexadecimal E5 in the first character of each entry in the
root directory (marks it as empty and available), then reads the rest of
the disk to look for bad sectors. It doesn't touch the Master Boot
record or the partition table, that's fdisk's job.
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