virus trouble and reformatting and MBR wiping

[me]

Hi there,

I'm hoping someone can help me. I got a serious virus and need to
reformat my hd and start over. I also got a warning saying MBR was
changed. I was planning on doing the ole fdisk /mbr until I read that
you can't do that with NTFS file system.

What I'm wondering is how can I wipe the mbr while I'm doing my
formatting and re-installing. I don't have a 'real' windows CD, I
only have the recovery cd that came from the manufacturer. I have the
option to do a quick format before installing windows, which I'll do,
but I'm wondering how I can fix the mbr.

Any help you can give would be much appreciated!
Thanks so much!

 

[Rich Barry]

If the Recovery CD allows you to delete and create a new partition then
do that. If not go here and
get a super duper boot disk Win98. www.bootdisk.com Then go into the
Bios and set the Floppy as
first boot device. Use Fdisk to delete and create a new partition.
Make it Active and then format using
the disk or format using the recovery CD. You have to go back into the
Bios and make the CDRom the
first boot device.

 

[me]

I can do this with an NTFS file system? I thought fdisk wouldn't work
with NTFS.

What does deleting and creating a partition do that formatting doesn't
do? And finally, once I do that, can I then install xp back using
NTFS?

Thanks very much for your help, and forgive me if I'm a bit clueless
about this!

 

[Plato]

I can do this with an NTFS file system? I thought fdisk wouldn't work
with NTFS.

fdisk can delete a primary ntfs partition but not a logical drive in an
extended partition. If you really want to wipe your drive of all data to
make it as clean as when you first got it use a zero fill utility:

http://www.bootdisk.com/temp/zerofill.zip

 

[Steve N.]

If the Recovery CD allows you to delete and create a new partition then
do that. If not go here and
get a super duper boot disk Win98. www.bootdisk.com Then go into the
Bios and set the Floppy as
first boot device. Use Fdisk to delete and create a new partition.
Make it Active and then format using
the disk or format using the recovery CD. You have to go back into the
Bios and make the CDRom the
first boot device.

FDISK /MBR from Win98 boot disk or FIXMBR from WinXP Recovery Console
will re-write the MBR, but deleting and creating partitions will not.

Steve

 

[Alex Nichol]

I'm hoping someone can help me. I got a serious virus and need to
reformat my hd and start over. I also got a warning saying MBR was
changed. I was planning on doing the ole fdisk /mbr until I read that
you can't do that with NTFS file system.

What I'm wondering is how can I wipe the mbr while I'm doing my
formatting and re-installing. I don't have a 'real' windows CD, I
only have the recovery cd that came from the manufacturer. I have the
option to do a quick format before installing windows, which I'll do,
but I'm wondering how I can fix the mbr.

In fact the MBR is the same for either file system, it specifies the
partitions in its Partition table, and the code which gets rewritten
finds the active one and passes the buck to the first sector of that -
which is when things get dependent on the file system of that partition.

So you can use a Win98 startup floppy's FDISK /MBR

But be warned - these boot sector viruses often displace the partition
table to give themselves more room, also including in themselves code to
find the table as needed. So rewriting the MBR by *any* means may well
result in the disk being effectively unpartitioned and inaccessible.
Try to get rid of the virus by other means, and then backup all critical
data - off the machine. Only then try the mbr trick. And if it does
not do it you are stuck with a clean reinstall - and the makers recovery
disk will do the MBR itself

 

[Jone Doe]

In fact the MBR is the same for either file system, it specifies the
partitions in its Partition table, and the code which gets rewritten
finds the active one and passes the buck to the first sector of that -
which is when things get dependent on the file system of that partition.

So you can use a Win98 startup floppy's FDISK /MBR

But be warned - these boot sector viruses often displace the partition
table to give themselves more room, also including in themselves code to
find the table as needed. So rewriting the MBR by *any* means may well
result in the disk being effectively unpartitioned and inaccessible.
Try to get rid of the virus by other means, and then backup all critical
data - off the machine. Only then try the mbr trick. And if it does
not do it you are stuck with a clean reinstall - and the makers recovery
disk will do the MBR itself

Generally speaking you DON'T need to take such drastic steps. Instead of
reformatting everything, look for information about removing the virus you
have.

Perhaps if you posted the information as to the name of the virus and
further information there, someone could help.