VIRUS in old PC no boot

[oldman_gamer]

My old compaq with WIN98se had gotten a virus in it after the kids took it over for gaming so bad that it would not boot.Would the virus be in the hard drive only? Could I sell the other parts if I wanted too without worry?My personal information in the putr would be only on the HDD?


Another thing....my son took the burner out of the old compaq (was an add on LITE ON brand) for his Dell and it did not fit? Is this a Dell thing or are they all different ? I was under the impression that the lite on burner would fit any brand/model etc..like standard size OEM.


Enlighten me oh great ones!!

[screwballl]

all the info is stored on the hard drive so as long as that is removed, no personal info will go out if you sell it without it... as for the burner, it should fit in any other system, I do not know of any reason why it would not.

[Hitman]

Viruses only affect data on the HDD, and your data will only be on the HDD.

5 1/4 is pretty much the standard for optical drives. It doesn't matter what computer you're using. Now Dell might have some funky attachment to secure the drive in the case. What exactly do you mean by it does not fit.

[stinger608]

Originally Posted by Hitman

Viruses only affect data on the HDD, and your data will only be on the HDD.

Actually, there have been a few, very few, viruses that attack the system BIOS chip, but I haven't heard of a new one in probably 3 or 4 years

[oldman_gamer]

Originally Posted by Hitman

Viruses only affect data on the HDD, and your data will only be on the HDD.

5 1/4 is pretty much the standard for optical drives. It doesn't matter what computer you're using. Now Dell might have some funky attachment to secure the drive in the case. What exactly do you mean by it does not fit.

The opening was too wide for the drive....the PC may have been missing something though come to think of it.I kinda figured it was all a standard thing,but from what I have been reading here,alot of big name propriety brand stuff,pre made units use thier own crap.Seems it was missing the rails on his unit.He got rid of it anyway which was a good thing(rent to own deal) yuck.

[Hitman]

Originally Posted by oldman_gamer

The opening was too wide for the drive....the PC may have been missing something though come to think of it.I kinda figured it was all a standard thing,but from what I have been reading here,alot of big name propriety brand stuff,pre made units use thier own crap.Seems it was missing the rails on his unit.He got rid of it anyway which was a good thing(rent to own deal) yuck.

Some cases require drive rails that you attach to the drive then slide into the slot. You would have to remove these from the old drive before inserting a new drive.

[oldman_gamer]

How can I safely destroy/get rid of the old HDD from that unit?Soak it in water,coke,,smash it flat with a BFH etc.? I know there is alot of personal info on it ,just not sure what to do with it.

[oldman_gamer]

Originally Posted by Hitman

Some cases require drive rails that you attach to the drive then slide into the slot. You would have to remove these from the old drive before inserting a new drive.

I know the rails you speak of....there was over 1' on each side that would have needed to have been made up.I think it had been tampered with and not completely put back together.

[stinger608]

Originally Posted by oldman_gamer

How can I safely destroy/get rid of the old HDD from that unit?Soak it in water,coke,,smash it flat with a BFH etc.? I know there is alot of personal info on it ,just not sure what to do with it.

there are a couple of things you can do to erase all of the data on that hard drive, and reuse it for something else. Maybe just a slave drive for a different system or something like that. The one thing to be sure though, is DO NOT attach the drive to another working system until it is completely cleaned!!!!


One such utility to safely remove all data on that hard drive is KillDisc.

Active@ Kill Disk. Hard Drives Eraser. Free Download.

It writes all zeros to the hard drive. You could maybe reinstall the hard drive in the old system, with no other hard drive in the system, make the 3 1/2 bootable disc, and do the complete erase, and then you would have a fresh clean hard drive.

[oldman_gamer]

I see...I can load that on my good system,copy it to a floppy and then run it in the infected pc....as long as my good system stays ok im up with that! Thanks!