Greeting to all,
I would greatly appreciate your thoughts on whether formatting a HD drive in the below scenario is sufficient to ensure any lurking malware or virus would be eliminated and if my plan makes sense.
I just bought a small HP computer that was turned-in from a corporate lease. I am considering using it as a dedicated computer solely for banking and financial activity with the hopes of limiting virus/malware exposure.
After being returned from lease, the computer HD was wiped by the refurbishing/selling agency and then a new clean install of W7 was added prior to shipping. When I received the computer I completely formatted the HD and reinstalled W7 from a W7 install disk. I should had utilized a secure wipe/deleting program rather than a complete format but didn't plan on using the computer as a secure banking computer at the time.
So, my questions come down to:
1.) is a complete format and clean install sufficient, or should I start over with a complete wipe writing zeros? or a new HD?
2.) is a "refurbished" computer a safe platform or I should build new with only new components?
3.) any chance of a virus hiding in the initial sectors of the HD that might not get wiped by the format?
Thanks for your thoughts and expertise,
Dazs867