I didn't do a true format, it was only the windows 7 installation format, is this the same as the XP format? as I remember that taking a while when I chose a full format, yet this does it in seconds.
XP's format was a true format. The Win7 install process only removes the Tables... leading up to;
As I understood it, it writes over the data ready to be used again
And that's the crappy part. I used to be under the same impression. However, in the Windows Kernal version 6+, it scans the drive to find any existing core files. If found (it looks at actual data and doesn't care about the tables), it just uses those again...
This is exactly why some problems persist through re-installations of Windows. Issues, sometimes even malware, makes it into the kernel files, and the re-install process does nothing to solve these.
when I first got windows back on, this wasn't there, it appeared at some point after my drivers were installed, I'm guessing the network one, but not sure.
That code, and the notes it printed, seemed awfully amateur to be coming from any driver install. While not impossible, my guess would be that either it made its way into the kernel, or it's injected itself to a file on the data partition.
could the virus affect the efficiency of this drive?
It could, sure, but doubtful it is. These types of things make your PC part of a bot net or the like anymore. There was a virus back in the day that destroyed HDD's, but those slowly faded as theft and fraud became prevalent.
I do have ultimate boot C.D is this program likely to be on there, or is it free ware?
I've never used UBCD, but I think I heard it has a drive wiper on it... DBAN is also free here.