A Violent Virus Cure?

"Q: I have heard of people throwing out their hard drives because of virus infections. Why not zap the hard drive with an electromagnetic videotape bulk eraser, then format and reload the operating system? Works for me....— Ann

A: It's never reasonable to throw out a drive because of a virus infestation. If you're frustrated enough to wipe everything and start fresh, you can do so without any special hardware. A product like the free DBAN (Darik's Boot And Nuke) will overwrite the entire disk multiple times, wiping out all data to military standards. You create a floppy disk or CD of DBAN on a clean system and boot the to-be-wiped system from it. DBAN then thoroughly wipes the drive's data.

A different problem arises when the drive is actually nonfunctional. Your data is still on it, and conceivably a forensics expert could recover it. If the data is sensitive enough for this to be a worry, you can solve your problem the old-fashioned way: Take the drive out to the garage and whack it . . . "

A Violent Virus Cure? - Solutions by PC Magazine: