I think I'm being told porkies, about viruses being resident on empty disks?

Well, this is how the tale goes,

I have two computers. a gateway (4 years old), and a new medion.

Just bought a new computer about a month ago (medion), and after about three days the thing kept on rebooting. I place the install disc in, and managed to fix the problem for a week or so when I placed a fresh copy of Win Xp on.

My gateway computer (working fine) is kept clean with the latest updates of Norton Internet Security. The system is maintained once a week with updates, system checks with ad-aware and spybot, and all my discs are also clean, as they have also been checked

The software that has been installed on the (medion) has come off the internet, through the Gateway, remembering the medium is not connected.

The medium computer started it's reboot thing again, so I sent it off for repair, as it's still under warrenty.

Now, this is the weird thing. I just had a call this morning from the medion tech people. They said that the system had to be cleaned, because it had viruses on it.

a) I've totally wiped all discs, including the removal of all partitions.

b) the computer has a fresh install from a genuine windows XP disc, no pirated stuff.

Technitian rings up ans says computer has a virus on it. I can only conclude that the windows disc has a virus, as I never got a chance to install anymore software.

Can viruses still reside on a hard-disc, even though the entire system has been formatted. (full format, not a quicky). I can't believe this guy from medion. His telling me porkies. If there is no data on a disc, how can a virus exist?

 

Personally I’d be inclined to agree that it’s just their stock response to avoid responsibility for the problem and to charge you for the work, as virus infection will probably not be covered by warranty. Or perhaps it’s just stonewalling as they could not find anything wrong.

There are however viruses that can survive a format and reinstall by living in the unused sectors of the hard drive that the MBR (Master Boot Record) is on at the very start of the drive. They are rare and I’ve never seen one and don’t know if there are any currently doing the rounds. Ask them what virus it was and where it was. I seriously doubt you could ever have more that one MBR virus at a time as there is just not the space in the unused sectors.

If the new XP install did not have any service packs included and you connected it to the net, even for 10 seconds, then it could have been infected.

 

or...if you use floppy disks in the new one that have been used in other computers, it's possible that you could transfer a boot sector virus to the new one. Not likely but possible.