will formatting a hard drive get rid of a virus?

[Norky]

to me these people are just a bunch of retards that should all get locked away fr **** like this... what satisfacton do they get from ****ing up peoples pc, absolutely nothing, ****ing geeks

In the 'olden' days 'hacking' mainly referred to 'phreaking' the telephone system to get such wondrous things as free flights. However, this could only really be done by computer engineers/scientists, if you will, who actually knew what they were doing and would need to invest vast amounts of time, money and effort. Now that the use of computers is nearly all software based (when was the last time you heard about someone breaking into a computer by guessing the telephone numbers?) and available to everyone, 'script kiddies' have the chance to become 1337 h4xx0rz liek Kevin Mitnik by clicking two buttons!

[nev_payne]

so....has this install of windows always been faulty? It soundsl ike you triued to repair Windows and gave up..battling through the problems untill they killed off the Windows controller/kernal.

Repair installation (if it is XP) is dead easy:

- Put in XP cd, and check BIOS to boot to CD. Restart.

- Install loads, and will ask for F6, and ask for F2 for Automated system recovery...DO NOT PRESS F2.

- Once you get into setup, press ENTER to install XP - do not choose Repair/recovery options at this point!!!

- The install will check the hard drive for previous installs, and should ask you if you want to repair it - use this option...normal installation of XP form here on in.