How can i reformat my hard drive?

My system began deteriorating approximately 3 days ago. As it turns out, my Norton Anti-Virus program was not scheduled for weekly updates and it had been over 2.5 months since the last Virus Definition update. I don't open E-Mail files from anybody I don't know, however, I'm now badly infected. Although it took 4 tries to get the Norton Antivirus Virus updates, by now, I'm constantly kicked out of the attepted runs of of the Virus Scan, usually sometime around 50% completed (I understand that certain aggressive viruses can block the scans).

I have managed to save my vital data files to another uninfected hard drive and I'M READY TO REFORMAT THE INFECTED HARD DRIVE and reload my operating system & software. GOING INTO WINDOWS 2000 SAFEMODE "COMMAND PROMPT" AND TYPING

FORMAT C:

generates a response that it cannot proceed with formatting because a volume is active (or busy), do you want to force the formatting command, I type y for yes and it won't go any further indicating that the volume is still active.

If it's important to help you gauge the level of infectedness of this hard drive, from the time I clicked on the "Command Prompt" choice in the initial Safe Mode menu, it took 3 to 4 minutes to finally load to the "C:" prompt.

If you have a simple method of reformatting the hard drive without the volume being active to stop the formatting, I would appreciate that tip. It is a 60 day old 80 GB Western Digital Hard Drive with 8MB Cache, and I'd rather not have to trash it.

By working on it any further, can I potentially cause the virus to deeper into my system, allowing it to infect my Motherboard and it's chipset?

If so, and the tip I'm asking for is not easy, can Data Doctors, with some of your special tools, accomplish the reformatting at a reasonable cost. If you can complete the reformatting and give me a clean hard drive, I can reload my Windows 2000 operating system and all of the other software myself.

This is my primary work PC for my Real Estate business and I would like to get it fully back and working as soon as possible.

You are welcome to E-mail me back or call me if it's a quick fix I can get from you or bring it in to your shop.

Thanking you for your response,

Gary Kahn

This question was answered on December 17, 2003. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

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If anything, find an old 98 cd, then use the f-disk command to reformat, then install from the windows 2000 cd.

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Posted by Student of Katharine Gibbs School - New York on December 17, 2003

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