Boot Sector Virus !!

Graham00

Graham00

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My desktop has died :crying: (on netbook now)a message comes up to press 'r' to repair a missing or corrupted file(config.sys), then a bit later on it a box comes up with BOOT SECTOR VIRUS continue y/n? ....so i switched it knowing i can't do anything, not even a re-install because i know it's deep in the BIOS !
Will it need a new motherboard ? what's the next step from here, thanks.
 
this is actually a feature in the BIOS itself.... the BIOS cannot get a virus.

As I said, this is a feature of the BIOS, it detects when a modification is being made to the boot sector of a Hard Drive and warns the user.

By doing a repair, windows is modifying the boot sector, and hence the message. You can even disable the feature in the BIOS if you want to
 
Its probably not a a bios issue if it was you would have way more issues, like even getting it to turn on. Sounds like the boost sector on the hard drive has been corrupted. I suggest you go ahead and try to repair the master boot record, see what happens, there are tools out there that can help.

Don't stick the drive in another computer, it might try and boot from the drive and you could end up with two computers infected.

Thats about as much as I know on the subject.
 
Graham00 said:
Thanks Joe, would a complete erase of the HD do it with a special disk i've got ?
Click to expand...

Special disk? it could still be there after formatting the drive, a low level format might work.

I'd try repairing it before anything else, formatting wold be a last resort. If you have a repair CD that came with your computer try that, if you have the OS installation disk you can boot into that ad use the repair tool to rebuild the master boot record.
 
boot sector virus? bloody hell i dont think theres been any malware in the wild that has done that for a while..

personally id pull the drive out of the machine and pop it in as a 2nd drive to fix it.. doesnt sound like malware to me more corruption, plus malware doesnt jsut "jump" from machine to machine.
 
Personally, I'd just continue and say Y to the question on boot sector virus. Get the system up and running and then do a deep scan with your virus scanner. If there are other PCs on the network, you might want to disconnect them just to be on the very safe side. Check whether your anti virus does a boot sector scan (as opposed to a boot time scan) as well.

One thing to remember - a computer virus is just a piece of software and can (nearly) always be removed relatively simply once identified.
 
Do the messages come up each time you switch the PC on? Might be helpful to take a photo of the messages and to see when during the boot process that they appear and what version of windows you are using.
As far as I know, the newer versions of Windows no longer depend on config.sys.
 
Update, i have formatted the HD, deleted a partition i didn't think i had (8mb) reinstalled XP and all the time consuming updates that keep wanting restarts !
The system does crash from time to time STILL, but i will have to live with it until it totals and i get a 4gb RAM & 1TB machine :) thanks for the help.
 
you basicly need to unformat the drive to get rid of this type of virus.

you could relpace the dive and put the drive into an external device to get some data off it.

i should know i got a similar one.

Cheers Steve
 
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Whats happened now is i've got a new 320GB HDD in and the same thing is happening, installed everything, even XP SP2&3 and now it wont even boot, just a fan :(
 
Sounds like a connection or heat problem to me. Remove the memory cards and re seat them. Same with the video card and any others in the PCI slots etc. Disconnect the DVD drive and floppy if it has one and unplug any non essential USB connections and then try it again.

If it works for a while then bombs out check the processor heat sink is still seated properly and the fan on it works.
 
RobertP said:
Sounds like a connection or heat problem to me. Remove the memory cards and re seat them. Same with the video card and any others in the PCI slots etc. Disconnect the DVD drive and floppy if it has one and unplug any non essential USB connections and then try it again.

If it works for a while then bombs out check the processor heat sink is still seated properly and the fan on it works.
Click to expand...
Yup... heat sounds like a probable cause if it boots and then fails some random time later... Download and run memtest86 to test the memory to check you don't have a bad memory module.
 
Thanks, only just seen replies, i've reinstalled XP again, this time it all boots ok but shut down once, installing 73 updates now, i'll give it another chance then do as you suggest.
It now recognises the full amount of HDD opposed to showing 127GB which i think was me down to somehow creating another partition thinking the old windows was deleted on format.
 
The 127Gb thing implies your bios is quite old and doesn't understand larger drives. Windows with the right drivers will ignore the bios and use it all anyway. Updating the bios should fix things if windows didn't overcome the problem. Bios updates can also fix other hassles with the computer but the update procedure has some risks so if it ain't broke maybe don't fix it.
 
RobertP said:
The 127Gb thing implies your bios is quite old and doesn't understand larger drives. Windows with the right drivers will ignore the bios and use it all anyway. Updating the bios should fix things if windows didn't overcome the problem. Bios updates can also fix other hassles with the computer but the update procedure has some risks so if it ain't broke maybe don't fix it.
Click to expand...

It should be pointed out that while Windows (NT kernels and later, not the DOS kernel versions) installs its own drivers for all hardware, it still has to use the BIOS to start the boot process so the BIOS needs to at least be able to recognise the primary partition on the boot drive to kick the bootloader into life.
 
If you have System Mechanic you can create a bootable "Drive Scrubber" CD which will totally wipe your hard drive and get rid of everything on it.

This is not a format - it overwrites the whole disk so destroying all data on it including the boot sector.

After that you have to re-install Windows (including formatting).

.
 
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