Will I lose the virus if I reinstall Windows?

Hello,

If I have a virus in my PC and I reinstall Windows (my O.S.), will I erase that virus?

Thanks for sharing.

 

You formatted you HD and then you have reinstalled windows?
If yes, then yes your virus is gone for sure.

 

I am not so sure if he/she is using a patched or modified copy of windows

 

I'm using the original Windows Vista.

And by resintalling it I meant that I inserted the original CD, then did the reboot and erased all of my files and then reinstalled the O.S. from that CD.

So you think the virus is gone?

 

yes the virus will be gone.

However...

Check your flux capacitor for a double-thread-posting bug.

 

It should be.

For sure it would be if you had formatted the drive including the boot sector before the re-install.

Now get some AV protection on that computer for next time.

 

if you format your hdd it means you delete everything on it so yes, you will kill the virus

 

Thanks everyone for your kind answers.

 

The thing is that before re-installing Windows, I save on a CD a few documents (.txt) and my Favourites links; and only after that I re-install Windows.

And then I copy back those docs and favourites to my PC.

So do you think the potential virus could be in on of those files that I save on a CD?

 

It's possibly really, but I highly doubt it and even if you felt like they might contain a virus, you chould just scan them and hopyfully ( keyword hope ) your anti virus will pick up on it.

 

Once your system is back up and running with a fresh copy of windows head to avast.com and get their home edition if you cant afford the professional one. This way you'll be ready when a virus tries to attack your system again. There is also Spy Bot Search & Destroy and that is another good PC Tool you should have running on your computer.

 

If u format u r WHOLE HDD then it will remove the virus, bcoz virus can be in any other drive part. other than win installation.

 

Thanks for your answers.

So you think the virus could hide in those .txt docs and Favourites links?

 

Sorry, you say CAN BE or CAN'T BE in other drive partition?

 

Formatting will erase all data on the disk. So yes the virus would be gone.

As for the text files and such holding a virus, yes it is possible depending on what the virus was. Unlikely though, but possible. The only true way to know if that cd is infected is install some anti-virus software and scan the CD prior to copying files over.

 

I said, Virus may reside in other partitions. For ex. if u have C: as u r windows installation drive then virus can reside in other drives like D: or other partitions.

 

Just ensure that it has not affected the Master Boot Record on your HDD, We have couple for Bootable antivirus software which would detect the virus if it has affected the MBR.

 

My experience shows that if your virus is not too harmful, you can reinstall your operating system.But if you have scanned your hard disk and still there is virous, this time your are in hot water.
For this you have to fermate all of your hard disk.Before this copy your needed data in antivirus free drive.
Now do new operating system and then copy your data.
But make it sure that your new copied data has been scanned.

 

Your question is very interesting. When you uninstall wiindows and again you reinstall the same then your c:/ drive gets formated and all the virus are removed from it but ohter drives remains infected.usee avg,kaspersky,norton,quick-heal etc.

 

You don't have to reinstall OS to get rid of antivirus. If you try one antivirus software and it doesn't serve the purpose, get another one. There're good antivirus programs that will get rid of the virus in your computer.