Jim Meagher wrote:
>Last question, yes reformatting a drive will get rid of a virus --
>PROVIDED -- you have taken the necessary precautions to prevent the virus
>from migrating to your floppy disk (keep the diskette write protected).
>In most cases, (I think) reformatting a drive to eliminate a virus is a
>rather drastic last resort.  There are many shareware programs on the 'net
>which can get rid of virii in non-destructive manners.

Yes there are many shareware programs that will get rid of many common
viruses, but formatting does not necessarily cure the virus. If you get a
MBR (Master boot record) type of virus, unless you fdisk specifically with
the /mbr switch, the virus can remain. I also thought a format would get
rid of a virus on my hard disk. But I reformatted with the plain DOS
"format" command (no switches) and the virus remained. I found this out
after I went to reinstall Windows 95. Windows 95 setup stopped partway
through and would not continue, having recognized that a virus had infected
the MBR and displaying a message to that effect. (I *believe* this occurred
because I left the virus protection feature of my BIOS enabled.)

As Jim said, however, I agree that it should normally not be necessary to
reformat at all, because of the availability of inexpensive or free
programs that will get rid of most common viruses. At the time this
happened to me, my knowledge of virus behaviour was limited. I am not an
expert now, but it's amazing how getting one of the little devils motivates
a person to read up! I caught mine via a floppy disk, when I got lax about
virus scanning every single one of my floppies after it had visited another
computer.
Susan Sutherland
S. Sutherland Computer Consulting

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