Because LJ knows all...

[agilebrit]

My husband sold his HP on eBay.

Before doing so, he reformatted the hard drive and reloaded WinXP on it from the recovery discs. A diagnostic showed no bad sectors on the hard drive.

The buyer is claiming that a virus wiped out the hard drive and is "hoping that the motherboard isn't affected."

So I ask: Is it possible for a virus to do this? Wouldn't a reformat and reload wipe out a virus?

Comments

[jimhines.livejournal.com]

Is it possible for a virus to hide somewhere and survive a reformat, sneak back through the system during the reinstall, remain invisible while you finished loading WinXP, and then leap out to destroy the hard drive?

I don't know enough to say it's not possible. I suspect it's far more likely that -- if a virus has indeed fried the computer -- the buyer immediately ran out to the porn sites without protection, caught an LTD (laptop transmitted disease), and fragged his (her?) own drive.

Hoping the motherboard isn't affected? Exactly what kind of supervirus does this person think they have? In 7+ years of I.T. work, I never came across a single virus that caused hardware damage. And I cleaned a lot of crap off of our workstations.

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

That's what I thought, but I wanted to make sure before the Hubby fired off an email telling him he's full of ****. Thanks. :)

[modernelegance.livejournal.com]

In response to LTD: LOL! That is HILARIOUS!

[pensive]

A format WOULD wipe the viruses out.

As long as the comp was not hooked into the Net when XP was reinstalled, a virus couldn't have gotten back on there until the end-user got the comp

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

That's what we figured. What the hell is it with computer buyers on eBay? When I sold my PictureBook, I got a flake too. :/

[neo-prodigy.livejournal.com]

Yeah I pretty much echo the sentiments of the others.

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

That's what I thought. I'm vacillating between attributing malice or stupidity to said buyer right now...

[crayonbreakygal.livejournal.com]

Gah! I've never heard of a virus frying a motherboard. And I think that reformatting a drive is what computer techs do to get rid of viruses, right? Why can't people just be smart and nice instead of flakes? *hugs*

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what they do. *sigh* It's gotten so that doing anything on eBay is a major pain in the ass.

[highlander_ii]

To quote the man in the icon: "Everybody lies."

To add to that - cheaters lie more.

I don't think a typical virus would survive a reformat (considering that's how I got rid of a couple on my desktop PC before), so, I'm thinking, this buyer-person is just a 'douchebag' (since I've been mainlining Las Vegas recently and James Caan kinda rox *g*).

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

Well, we'll see what he says when the Hubby writes him back. :/

[baron-waste.livejournal.com]

He received a hard drive with nothing whatever on it but the OS. He doesn't know what this means; he's expecting to receive the computer 'as is,' with all the previous user's folders and (hopefully) files intact. Instead, there's nothing. Well, obviously a “virus” wiped it!

“Hope the motherboard isn't affected!” What a clod. Nothing short of a soldering iron could affect the motherboard - certainly not a computer program, which is all that a virus is.

Tell him you're dreadfully sorry, that it's the Genesis 09 virus, and that looking at the computer screen has caused it to broadband, and resequence his DNA. Tell him to expect either fish scales or a beak, depending on whether it was AM or PM when he first turned it on.

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

*giggles* The hubby wrote him back saying that the computer was fine when it left here, pointing out that he reformatted the hard drive TWICE before shipping it out, and (basically, but politely) asking him what he did to screw it up and what the "error" message was.

I suspect a PEBKAC, myself.