Does formatting the drive remove a rootkit?

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I have a system on which I suspect there is a rootkit. Since I need to rebuild this computer anyway, I am planning to reformat the HDD and reinstall the OS. Will this get rid of the rootkit? Or do I need to do something on the HDD at an even lower level?

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Timothy,

I’ve found that unless you either boot from a Windows Repair CD and clean the MBR or do a DBAN of the computer harddrive that just reformating does not get rid of the rootkit.

–Forrest

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The Premier antirootkit program today is “GMER”, available at http://www.gmer.net .

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To remove rootkits you need to boot from a CD, delete all partitions, re-partition and re-format.

cheers, Paul

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Thanks, guys.

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I have a system on which I suspect there is a rootkit. Since I need to rebuild this computer anyway, I am planning to reformat the HDD and reinstall the OS. Will this get rid of the rootkit? Or do I need to do something on the HDD at an even lower level?

Why do you think you have a rootkit?

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