Viral Proof Hard Drive? An idea I had while I was cleaning my infected computer :

[zenia 0]

what if the original operating system install could store its most valuable and critical operating files on a memory chip of the hard drive

This suggestion looks interesting. It needs a bit more of thinking of the consequentions to see the results and the advantages of this way to store the operating program. This reminds of running an operating program from an usb-stick. The operating program can be run with the option, that nothing is stored on the usb-stick. It is possible as well to change a setting which makes it possible to store files on the usb-stick.

[tansqrx 0]

The main issue still remains. If the operating system or software can access your known good back up, so can malware. Many malware packages today can access and change Windows restore points to infect them also. When to go back to restore from a “known good backup” you are reinfected because the backup also holds the malware.This is the same principal behind rootkits. There are checks to prevent programs from running at the operating system privileged level such as UAC controls. If for some reason the user allows malware access to privileged areas of the operating system, game over. The malware is now running at the same privilege level as the operating system and it also has the same power. This means that any “secure” mechanism for creating a backup is now no longer off limits to the malware. The only safe way to prevent this is to have a hardware switch which software has no means of controlling.There is even nasty stuff out there that can change the BIOS settings and even flash a new BIOS complete with malware if the BIOS allows software to access it from the operating system.

[yordan 10]

This brings back the need to periodically perform a cold backup of the operating system disk.You boot off a CD-ROM, you make a backup on a USB drive you remove after the backup, so everything is clean.In case of infection you power off your system, you plug the backup drive and you boot off the CD in order to restore the system.