Does re-formatting a hard drive really erase EVERYTHING?

Thats the nastiest piece of malware out there, its installed itself into your hardware, you need to get a new computer. I completely forget the name of the virus but ive read about it and its scarry, it embeds itself into your graphics card and your hard drive, you NEED a new computer there is no known way to get rid of it. I am 100% serious too.

That's the second fastest way. The fastest way is to get a new computer. ===== There is malware that can withstand formatting a drive - you need to overwrite every sector on the drive before reinstalling the software.

Progams that overwrite all sectors on the drive don't use the same terminology as their competitors, some call it wiping the drive, some call it erasing the drive. So carefully read their instructions. I use the free Killdisk from http://www.killdisk.com/ It boots to a MSDOS-like character menu and is a little strange to use, be sure to take notes if you use it because their terminology can be puzzling.

Darik's Boot and Nuke is another popular free program to do this. http://www.dban.org/ Wiping an entire drive can take hours; a 40-gigabyte drive takes over 45 minutes. You have been warned.

If your drive is several hundred gigabytes, start the procedure before you go to bed. ===== The other possibility is that the criminals behind your infections managed to get a rootkit installed on your hard drive that allowed them unfettered access to your computer, which means they could have downloaded the BIOS firmware or firmware from any other chip - and then could have modified that firmware to include hacker access, and then installed that firmware back onto your computer. Usually only the manufacturer of the computer can determine if this has happened as they have hardware tools that can force the processor board to run how they want it to.

Every device you install in your computer has firmware that can be modified. Your CD or DVD burner, your video card, tape drives, even hard drives. Malware has a lot of places it can hide.

===== Have you tried using a live CD of a Linux distribution? Most malware is Windows-based, it insinuates itself into Windows and won't work if Linux is running, even if the malware is in the chipset, as there are several Linux distros. Get a download of the Ubuntu Live CD and burn it to a CD and boot with the CD - the CD can't be infected by malware.

Boot the computer and learn how to operate Ubuntu. You can access many websites with the built-in Firefox browser, although you can't update the browser on the CD, you would have to get a more recent version of Ubuntu. I am using Ubuntu and Firefox right now to answer your question.

===== You can also download free bootable CDs of anti-malware from most anti-malware companies. AVG has one here : http://www.avg.com/us-en/avg-rescue-cd AVG Rescue CD This CD boots a version of Linux, thus bypassing any Windows-based malware, and runs their anti-malware program, which just scans for known malware using signatures. That means it might miss the most recent malware, especially malware that constantly updates itself to escape detection and removal.

It can rename or remove the malware files it detects, but it cannot replace malware files that replaced the original Windows files or drivers from manufacturers or legitimate software vendors. That means if it removes a critical file Windows might not be able to boot, even in safe mode. Other companies have their own versions.

Two years ago I tried Kaspersky's free version and it left a lot of junk files on my hard drive. BitDefender would not work with my onboard video chips and so I had a blank screen. ===== You can also just get a new computer and dump the old one to a repair shop that wants the challenge of busting that malware.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.