Gaming Usb formatting question regarding infections

[tijntje_7]

Question of the day:

I have a usb stick. It might be infected with a virus.
I take my old pc (which I don't mind if it gets infected anyway)
And I reformat the usb stick with the automatically build-in windows usb stick formatter.
Will the virus be removed from the usb stick if formatting is succesful?

Edit: Whoopsie, I'm an idiot, this should be placed in the gbatemp ask thingy

 

[Marlonguppy]

Question of the day:

I have a usb stick. It might be infected with a virus.
I take my old pc (which I don't mind if it gets infected anyway)
And I reformat the usb stick with the automatically build-in windows usb stick formatter.
Will the virus be removed from the usb stick if formatting is succesful?

Edit: Whoopsie, I'm an idiot, this should be placed in the gbatemp ask thingy

Answer: no, it just rewrites itself.

 

[Originality]

Most USB worms will automatically re-infect the USB drive after reformatting. You can prevent this by doing it in safe mode, where autorun doesn't work.

 

[tijntje_7]

Does this mean, that when I reformat the USB-stick in windows safe mode
The virus shouldn't be able to return? (assuming the virus is not on your harddrive or something similar...)

 

[Rydian]

No.

What he's saying is that in safe mode, the virus on the stick will not infect your computer in the first place (assuming it's an autorun type, because autorun does not work in safe mode).

 

[kylehaas]

I'd go online and find some nifty boot discs that allow you to format without booting windows.
Just use that to wipe the drive clean. Problem solved!

 

[Originality]

Nuking the drive won't help you clean a worm from a USB stick. Problem not solved.