I got a pretty nasty virus recently and had to reformat. I just used the win98 boot up disk and did a format c: however after I reinstalled my OS and everything seems to be running extremely slow for having virtually nothing on the drive. Is a low level format the answer?

If so... how do you go about doing a low level format? the drive is a 13.6 gig maxtor...

I'm not sure if a low level format is the answer but if you decide to go down this road then visit the Maxtor website and get their maxblaster and powermax software.

I don't think a low-level format is the answer either.............most drive manufactors don't recommend them, and most newer drives, are set-up at the factory and this isn't needed. Maxtor's site will probably tell you the same thing.
Could possably be a boot virus, but I haven't seen one for years.
I'd run a surface scan on the drive and check the RAM first, see if anything is buggy...............just my 2 cents..............
oh yeah, buy or d/l or good virus scanner and use it now and always.............;)

I would suspect that your DMA are not on for the hard drives/CDROMs.

If you use a Intel chipset motherboard, head towards Intel's website and download the chipset drivers.

On VIA chipsets, download the 4-in-1 drivers from www.via.com.tw , this will install the correct drivers for your chipset hardware.

HTH

To get rid of a boot sector virus boot to your 98 setup floppy and run fdisk /mbr - that will rebuild the master boot record overwriting any virus.
If you haven't yet installed mobo drivers for agp port and ide then chances are that your disk is running in compatibility mode and not in the required 32 bit access mode.

well...i have a low level utility...works excellent, for all drives....
very small file, just boot to dos
type in the file name
and it'll ask which drive, and just pick the hd u want formatted (low level)
and then just wait (a long time if big hd *reminder - low level is extremely slow, much slower than regular/high level formatting)

Right click & save as...
http://www.geocities.com/nuking2001/lowlevel.zip

remember, boot into dos and run the file LF.exe

mods and admin, you all can scan this file for virus if u'd like, just to be safe.