As the title suggests, I have a habit of downloading cracked softwares online- even antivirus as well ! Coming to realisation lately, I have decided to delete them all ... Now how do I ensure that my laptop is not infected and all the softwares are really wiped out ? thx ^^

OK I'll format it ... But does formatting really wipe out everything associated with the downloaded softwares ? I apologise for being a bit paranoid as I'm a noob in this field and pls correct me if I'm wrong ... We know that deleted files aren't really deleted- they're just hidden that's why agencies like the FBI can recover what was deleted by suspects ... So .. does the same principle apply to formatting as well ? Will it just be hidden or perhaps have any residues which will cause trouble in the future ? Thx ^^