[yokochamas]

Ahoy,

I recently had help in the Malware forums removing a bad virus. I am going to reformat/reinstall Vista using HP's preinstalled boot partition (on a separate hard drive by itself). After seeing that this virus would hide itself in vital system files on the C drive, I'm wondering if my boot partition could somehow be infected and would thus cause installation of a virus upon my reinstall. The handful of files on the partition drive show no change in modification date since I bought the computer, but I don't know that it's impossible to sidetrack that kind of change. Should I worry?

Also, during the several day virus removal process, I copied my personal files to DVDs. These files types include txt, mp3, wav, jpg, psd. Could these types of files, not then present in any of the computer's operational folders, have been infected? Is there a way to scan them with an antivirus program while they're on a DVD before I move them back to the computer?

Thanks for any help.

[yokochamas]

Anyone..

[Elvandil]

The restoration is usually a disk image which it is impossible for malware to infect. In any case, malware can't "jump". If it was not dragged there by you in an infected file, it would not be there, anyway. And even if it were dragged there by you, it still would be harmless unless executed, and when executed, it would want to attack the system partition, again. The system partition, where all the programs are executing and log ins take place, is malware's playground. You don't have a separate hard drive, just a separate hidden partition, but it will be fine.

[yokochamas]

Thank you.

What about viruses hiding in files I moved to DVD/USB drive and would like to place back on the drive.

[Elvandil]

You can scan them, but you can't do anything about any you find on the DVD because it is read-only.