Virus still there after format

[seanmcq]

Hi guys, got this e-mail from a friend today asking for help. He lives a long way away from me so I'm not able to physically get to the machine itself.

Hi

I have contracted a Virus of the PC variety.

I won't go into how I got it, but to suffice to say, it was a tad flukey!

Anyway, I decided to get rid of it by wiping my HD, so I used WDclear which writes zero's to the HD and makes it like it was fresh from the factory. However, when I reinstalled XP Pro, there it still is! I ran Spy-Doctor, which found 422 infections , so I purchased it and then proceded to use it to get rid. When I ran it a second time it came up with 50, and the third time it came up with 8 which were all Worm.WGAVN. It said they would be destroyed when I rebooted, so I did but nay, the buggers where still there, and when I went on line to see if I could do some research, I was infested by windows opening telling me I had s**t on my PC and to go 'Here there and everywhere' to get it fixed. And when I ran Spy-Doctor again, it came up with 283 infections.

Is it possible for a virus to be in the BIOS? Because if the WDclear writes zero's, how can the virus remain on the HD?

Any help would be greatfully excepted (Before I pull out all my hair!!! )

Here are some of the sites that the PC is trying to connect to:

promo.dollarrevenue.com

linuxcard.com

numb-soft.com

apps.deskwizz.com

and my personal favourite..........

symantec.loves.the.****.pheer.biz.

I've e-mailed him back asking for details of how exactly he caught it and told him to install some free anti-virus software. I've known of certain viruses that would corrupt or clear the BIOS but I don't know of any that would actually reside in the BIOS so to speak. Could it be living in the MBR? Would that be wiped after a format?

 

[howard_hopkinso]

The only thing I can think of, is the virus must reside in the bootsector of the drive.

Your friend needs to use a utility that will wipe the boot sector as well as the rest of the drive.

Look at this thread HERE for a list of hard drive utilities.

Regards Howard

 

[Peddant]

Of course the other possibility is that your friend
doesn`t know enough about staying safe on the internet as he should do.
It only takes 30 seconds without a firewall or one bad download.

No virus can survive a full format and clean install.

Infected boot CD maybe.? That can happen with "non-standard" XP CDs

There is such a thing as a virus that will corrupt the BIOS,
and make the computer unbootable,but that`s not the problem your friend has.