[Inori]

As I mentioned in my thread earlier today, my laptop's HDD broke. Luckily, I have a second copy of the exact same model from my previous laptop, as well as a Windows 7 install USB (which I could upgrade later). Perhaps not so lucky, however, is the fact that said previous laptop was mutilated, from what I can assume in retrospect now that I know more, by a particularly nasty rootkit.

If the rootkit is still on the drive (I cant remember if I've formatted or used it since), would it be safe to use if I formatted it and did a clean windows install? If not, would overwriting it by dd'ing or copying /dev/zero or /dev/urandom to the drive's location (/dev/sdX) be adequate?

[Blink]

It should be fine, rootkits are still programs even if they work at a kernel level, so they can still be deleted like anything else.

[Inori]

It should be fine, rootkits are still programs even if they work at a kernel level, so they can still be deleted like anything else.

That was my initial guess, just wanted to be safe since they're so fucking dangerous.

[TheCouchPullsOutButIDont1234]

As I mentioned in my thread earlier today, my laptop's HDD broke. Luckily, I have a second copy of the exact same model from my previous laptop, as well as a Windows 7 install USB (which I could upgrade later). Perhaps not so lucky, however, is the fact that said previous laptop was mutilated, from what I can assume in retrospect now that I know more, by a particularly nasty rootkit.

If the rootkit is still on the drive (I cant remember if I've formatted or used it since), would it be safe to use if I formatted it and did a clean windows install? If not, would overwriting it by dd'ing or copying /dev/zero or /dev/urandom to the drive's location (/dev/sdX) be adequate?

Yes, formatting it should work fine. I guess malware could get into the drive firmware, but that chance is about 1 in 100 trillion because I'm pretty sure the chip it's stored on is read-only. So it would basically have to be put in during the manufacturing process. Anyways, format the drives in gparted or diskpart or whatever once and you'll be ok.