Why do I wipe my hard drive once a year?

PC security is really an after thought for most users. So why do I wipe my hard drive once a year? We all know viruses, spyware and malware exist and in most cases can hide on your hard drive undetected by scanners and such. Root kits and polymorphic code all live on your system undetected. The only way to remove these unwanted parasites is to wipe your hard drive clean and start fresh. I have actually created a hidden encrypted drive where I store all my documents. Since it’s hidden in an alternate data stream and also encrypted it’s extremely unlikely any form of root kit virus or other parasite will figure out how to live in that area of my hard disk. This allows me to erase the hard drive my OS lives on and therefore erase all spyware, root kits and other parasites from my hard drive while keeping my photos and other documents safe and untouched and not have to remove them or back them up to some other media while going through the “disk cleaning” process.

1. erase your hard drive
2. set up a PC with two partitions or two hard drives
3. load OS on one hard drive or partition
4. set up alternate data streams on the second hard drive or partition
5. encrypt the other hard drive or partition
6. use the second hard drive or partition only for data storage
7. wipe the OS hard drive or partition once a year or more to keep your PC free of un detected parasites

Don’t forget to run at the user level at all time to avoid giving viruses and spyware access at the admin level.