root kit

[Robert Stratton]

That will work for most of them, as long as you take care to overwrite the Master Boot Record, as many hide in there these days. If I were going to try that, I'd do the reformatting from a computer booted off of read-only media, like a "live CD."

It is not certain however as there's at least one proof-of-concept of a rootkit that survives disk wipes. 

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/bios-virus-rootkit-security-backdoor,7400.html

--Bob S.


----- Original Message -----
> 
> I'm working on security for my home network. I often buy second hand
> computers that come with hard drives. Of course I don't run the old
> operating system that was on the computer, but I have been wondering
> if when you format the drive does it get rid of any installed virus,
> worms or root kits?
> --
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