Win 98 startup disk

[Raph]

On a Windows 98-based system,

1) If one creates a Win 98 startup disk while the system is infected by some virus, is it possible that the startup disk becomes infected ?

2) If I format my hard disk from DOS after having booted from a startup disk, and I format using the command format C:/s does that guarantee that any boot virus is removed ? I have been told to use format C: /u /s instead. Is it a sound idea?

[PostCode]

1. Possibly, if this is the way the virus is transfered, i.e., if it's a boot sector virus

2. Yes, if it's not a boot sector virus. To be 100%, use fdisk and remove the partition then recreate it on a cold reboot.

Hope this helps.

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BiosCentral (http://www.bioscentral.com)

[Randy_tx]

The most sure fire way I know of to eliminate the chance of a boot virus is to boot to a clean startup disk which also has a "low level" format program on it(you can get the LL format program from the website of the Hdrive mfg. of your hard drive). Then do an Fdisk create a partition and reformat always using clean disks to boot with.

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"As hard as a rock & dumb as a brick"...Windows CEMeNT

[Paleo Pete]

Also make sure your Start Up disk(s) are always write protected, and made from a clean computer.

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[tjaymadison]

"The most sure fire way I know of to eliminate the chance of a boot virus is to boot to a clean startup disk which also has a "low level" format program on it(you can get the LL format program from the website of the Hdrive mfg. of your hard drive)."


I have seen that "low-level format" response quite a few times on this board, and IT IS WRONG! First of all, if this option is available in your BIOS setup program, it is a holdover from the PC/XT/AT days, and meant for IDE or RLL hard drives ONLY. I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has tried to select this option -- perhaps it just returns some kind of error message if you try. There are low-level format downloads available on sites like Maxtor, but if you look, they are very model specific. You also used to be able to do it through a DEBUG procedure. If you mistakenly try to use one of these on an EIDE/UDMA drive, you run the very probable risk of rendering the drive useless. Your best bet is to just run FDISK and FORMAT C: /S/U from a known clean start-up floppy, and then if you're paranoid, run one of those "diskwiper" type programs that writes all zeroes or something to every byte.

[Randy_tx]

I wouldnt have suggested it if I hadn't successfully done it MANY times with IDE drives.......I use Maxtor's Low Level utility on MANY brands of drives all the time( over 100 LL formats in last 12 mos) in this circumstance and have NEVER had a bad result. Additionally, I would not suggest that someone new to computers do it with any utility other than the one suggested by the Manufacturer of the Hard Drive as I did in my original post!

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"As hard as a rock & dumb as a brick"...Windows CEMeNT

[Paleo Pete]

OK, tjaymadison is basically correct. Low Level Formatting is done on IDE and SCSI drives at the factory and should never be done again. Trying it will most likely render the drive useless. The option in BIOS is intended for MFM and RLL drives, commonly used in XT/AT systems, and a few 386 machines. Same for the debug routine in DOS.

The so-called Low Level Format utilities such as Max Blast actually write all 0's to the drive, rather than doing a true low level format. I've used the same utilities plenty times too, and with success, but it's not a true low level format.

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