Can a virus kill a hard drive?

[charliebrown]

Scanned a friend's computer with Norton Antivirus and found 4000+ infected files; some of which couldn't be repaired. After re-installing Windows 98, it booted to a blue screen - so we reformatted the hard drive and re-installed Windows 98 again.... on the 2nd restart in the install process, the bios did not even recognize the hard drive.... dead hard drive... did the viruses kill it? Is this even possible?

Anyone ever experience anything like this?

 

[amdskip]

:Q

ummm, 4000, anything is possible

 

[kamiam]

have you tried a low-level format?
edit,missed the "dead" part...and tripleshot's right I've heard of them

 

[Hossenfeffer]

Yes, there are viruses that can effectively "kill" a system.

Do you have a log of what viruses were involved?

 

[Tripleshot]

If you can,place the HDD in another puter,or perhaps on a different channel on that mobo and insure that bios auto detects HDDs if that is available. If the bios has not been infected,then use a boot disk and look at C: dir and see if stuff is on it. If so, see if it will boot. If not, See if you can re install the OS. with a CD.

Some viruses can alter the bios. That is why I suggested another puter. otherwise,you must do what you can with what you have.

Yes,some virus's can render a hdd useless. But if the disc spins,it can more than likely be saved.

 

[Hossenfeffer]

<< But if the disc spins,it can more than likely be saved. >>

Sounds like a Predator line, to me. Sgt. Tripleshot on the case!

 

[Atlantean]

Yeah it they can kill a harddrive.

 

[Chipset]

Viruses are software. They cannot physically damage the hardware with the exception of flashing the BIOS (a couple of viruses do this).

 

[jimmyhaha]

my hd now has virus in MBR (master Boot record)
now headache...