Replacing Hard drive

I've been having some computer issues, and I just wanted to know, if I replace my hard drive, something that I was planning on doing anyways, is it possible that something malicious could carry over? I'm not going to master-slave anything, or whatever, just a pure and simple hard drive replacement. I've heard of some scary rootkits that can, but most of those from what I understand are proof of concept and not actually real. Can anyone help me?

 

Hello,
What will be the purpose of the new drive?
Will it run OS or store data? Or both? Do you intend to image your existing system over or install from scratch?
Mrk

 

It will house the OS, and like I said, its a fresh install of the OS, I'm not going to image over my existing system or anything like that.

 

Nothing Nasty will get transfered over If you do:

Anti Virus Scan (Clean and Delete Option)
Anti Spyware Scan (Quarentine and Delete)
Clean Hard Drive for Junk & Stuff (CCleaner is Good)
Thouroughly Defragment your existing Drive, and Defrag the New Drive Immediately After the Fresh Install

YOu should be good to go after these proceedures

 

What does the defrag do?

I am curious/kinda freaked out by things like VM rootkits and stuff which are supposed to stay over, theoretically.

 

Hello,
If you install from scratch, nothing can or will passively transfer itself.
But if you install something infected, it will reoccur. Up to you.
Mrk

 

Nothing can transfer? Are you sure? I don't know anything about computers, but I keep hearing all these stories about VM rootkits and stuff. Now, I don't know anything about them, or even if they are just theoretical, but they're pretty scary and hard to detect.

 

Hello,
If you delete the partition table and format the hard drive - there will be no trace left.
If you install clean OS + clean programs - there will be nothing wrong.
If you copy your old data that contains no malware - there will be no malware on your new machine.
Even if it contains malware - until you execute it - it will only be files, like any other file.
You can forget about sci-fi stories. Relax.
Mrk

 

Windows is kind of like an unorganized Secretary. When ever you open a file or run a program it is like going to a filing cabinet and pulling out a folder then shuffling the files within it. When you close that folder\program Windows, the unorganized Secretary, does`t always put all the files back into the folders and then back into the filing cabinet in the proper place. Defragging your hard drive does.

 

So rootkits can't hide in BIOS or on the sound card or something? Thanks for everyone's help so far, by the way.

 

there are only proof of concept malware of those so far and they require physical access, not remote execution or employing your OS as a platform (they need to be loaded just like any other firmware flash)

the probability is effectively zero

 

OH WOW. You don't know how much you have relieved me. You are amazingly awesome. Thanks so much! all these things I've read are so scary, but they always seemed so vague. No wonder, its because they're not exactly real, they're proof of concept. Great. Thanks so much.