Why can't viruses survive a format?

[justinsn95]

Sounds like a dumb question, I know. But I had another thread going where this got brought up, and I figured it warranted a thread of it's own. From what little I know about malware in general, it's supposed to be like a sneaky little self-activating thing. Once you have contracted it, that is. And, I understand that when you delete something from your hard drive, you can never really, fully delete it. You just sort of pave over it, so to speak. But, it can take who knows how long for something else to be written over it, in it's old spot. The spot on the drive gets assigned a blank address, so that something else can just be written over it. When you delete something, that is. But do to the nature of viruses and trojans and adware and all that stuff that we hate, how can just having a new address assigned to it's spot, stop it from working?

Wouldn't it just be like "eh, not a big deal. I'll just work around it. Or possibly move somewhere else." Then again, It can't go anywhere if you format the whole drive, cause then all the sectors/blocks get a new blank address, right? Is there some way that it could possibly still work, after the drive has had a new copy of the OS installed, and the drive formatted? And if not, why?

[DSwarP]

There's multiple types of formatting. Some just delete the filetable thing that tells it what stuff is where, but the sectors themselves don't get rewritten, and then there are formats like you mentioned where every single bit gets set to 0. Most formats don't do that though, because they take forever.

I personally don't know if they survive quick formats or not.

[slash_2_2000]

Because formatting a drive deletes ... everything. You can't have a virus (or any software) if there is nothing there.

[davidhammock200]

Actually there are a few types of viruses that can survive not only a format, but also a re-partitioning! These MBR (Master Boot Record) viruses require a totally destructive "low level" format, that is usually only performed by the HDD manufacturer & only once.

The good news is that usually these "deep" viruses usually don't cause too many problems, unless of course they destroy your MBR's.

Best Wishes,
Dave

[FX5200]

In which case you probably would have to run "FixMBR" and you lose all your data.

[Nagoshi]

Just writes multiple 0s to drive and you'll be fine.

Those long-lasting viruses shouldn't come back as they are not really working since the OS cannot see them.

[Hickeydog]

OH wow. I just had a major time confusion factor. I just came out of the H1N1 thread into this one. I was trying to figure out how a format affects an airborn virus.

Anyways, David is right on. If you get a MBR virus, you're toast. Just buy a new hard drive.

[jbmcmillan]

Originally Posted by davidhammock200

Actually there are a few types of viruses that can survive not only a format, but also a re-partitioning! These MBR (Master Boot Record) viruses require a totally destructive "low level" format, that is usually only performed by the HDD manufacturer & only once.

The good news is that usually these "deep" viruses usually don't cause too many problems, unless of course they destroy your MBR's.

Best Wishes,
Dave

Very rare these days because malware is where the money is.They are difficult to write and malware just about any Tom **** or Harry can do it at some level.There is actually very few new Virii in the wild now compared to even 5 yrs ago as they discovered it was more profitable to distribute malware to take over machines(botnets)than to destroy your files and o/s.These are not virii in the sense that avs were not designed to defend against that type of behavior but now include some level of malware detection.A quick format will look after just about anything out there now but you also don't get the disk checking that you get with a full format.

[DesertRat]

Originally Posted by Hickeydog

If you get a MBR virus, you're toast. Just buy a new hard drive.

That's totally unnecessary. If you really have an MBR virus take the drive out and plug it in a Linux box and use dd to zero the MBR. Takes a few milliseconds, problem solved.

Or use DBAN and do a quick wipe. There is no virus that can fsck your drive except if you're stupid enough to download tainted firmware and install it.

[Sephious]

Originally Posted by FX5200

In which case you probably would have to run "FixMBR" and you lose all your data.

FixMBR doesn't cause any data loss in normal situations.

Also, the reason viruses don't come back even after a quick format is simple. Even though the data for the virus is still on the drive, the drive has no idea that it is there, and thus the system cannot run the virus. Viruses run within the same parameters as a regular executable file in any operating system, and if the virus doesn't exist within those regular parameters there's no possible way for it to be run.

An analogy would be if a bear was trapped inside an invisible, sound-proof, ethereal box, it wouldn't be able to hurt you because you'd never know it was there, and it'd never know you were there.

[zollen]

Anyone know any good formatting vacine for H1N1?

[FX5200]

Speedfan.10char

[BRONiUS]

Originally Posted by zollen

Anyone know any good formatting vacine for H1N1?

.45 cal.
10charcaols

[Milkman]

Shovel and some concrete?

[Scubar]

Chuck Norris.

[Fendulon]

Chuck norries shooting a shovel stuck in concrete while monitoring speedfan.

[redout]

Originally Posted by zollen

Anyone know any good formatting vacine for H1N1?

Wear a condom when you lick a pig. Location is immaterial.

[SSPrncVegeta]

[justinsn95]

Originally Posted by zollen

Anyone know any good formatting vacine for H1N1?

Kinda off topic but eh, I got my answer already anyway. I think that one day nano-technology (in the form of tiny germ destroying robots) will make people completely immune to any bad form of virus or bacteria. Course just one of the little robots will need more computing power than a nasa supercomputer, but eh, details. You could even program them to eradicate cancer cells.

[FX5200]

Did you just watch G.I. Joe: TROC?