nowdays virus can do anything, i would say it is possible but please note it is illegal and t would be best to keep that grudge for someone to yourslelf and not try to get revenge cause they can easily trace the computer that made it happen
Its actually the reverse. Had some threatening mail a while back which I have managed to stop however have heard rumours that this may be the next move.
Have bought a back up hard drive and saved all my stuff anyway.
In all my years removing malware, Ive yet to see a virus that wipes a hard disk.
You do get file infectors and a certain infection or two that will cause your bog standard anti-virus and anti-spyware progs to delete important system files, thus rendering your computer unbootable.
They are easily removed with the right tools and instruction though.