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ZiNgA BuRgA · 11/07/2010 05:20 AM

I strongly doubt a virus messes with your MBR. With UAC, viruses generally don't target that stuff, and even without it, I recall Windows being quite pedantic over such low level issues. Furthermore, there's little reason for it to do it anyway - it's difficult to do. More likely, you've had stability issues of some sort (possibly by the virus) which caused corruption of the disk in some way. I dunno, but I've gotten MBR issues once when I clocked up my RAM.

SkyDX · 11/07/2010 06:19 AM

I know it sounds strange Zinga but let me explain:

I have 4 internal HDDs, one had a Vista/7 type MBR two MBRs were empty and the forth must have had an old GRUB on it if I remember correctly.
The BIOS always completed the step "Verifying DMI Pool Data" with success, then the screen simply stayed frozen.

It did this with all HDDs, I tried them one by one. With no HDDs the BIOS would advance to "BOOT DISK FAILURE" which naturally would happen.
So I bought that new HDD and tried to let the BIOS boot from it. Again "BOOT DISK FAILURE" cause it's MBR was empty, the other drives still made the BIOS freeze.

So I installed 7 on the new drive and also EasyBCD. EasyBCD has a option called "Rewrite MBR" which apparently scans all drives for Vista/7 MBRs and rewrites them all. As soon as I did that my original 7 install booted like a charm again. If I select one of my 3 remaining drives the BIOS still freezes like it did.

The only logical explanation I can come to, the MBRs were overwritten with garbage data.

Silvertie · 11/07/2010 06:38 AM

(11/07/2010 05:20 AM)ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote: I strongly doubt a virus messes with your MBR. With UAC, viruses generally don't...

Is UAC even all that helpful? I mean, I never enable it on my installs, and if it is somehow activated, I disable it instantly.

Assassinator · 11/07/2010 08:30 AM

(11/07/2010 06:38 AM)Silvertie Wrote:
(11/07/2010 05:20 AM)ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote: I strongly doubt a virus messes with your MBR. With UAC, viruses generally don't...

Is UAC even all that helpful? I mean, I never enable it on my installs, and if it is somehow activated, I disable it instantly.

Probably not.

UAC was the most annoying thing ever, I disabled it like the 2nd day I installed Windows.

I would probably rather live with virus' than live with UAC constantly nagging me. At least the virus' won't nag me.

(11/07/2010 05:18 AM)S7* Wrote: The fact you didn't really deal with it - considering it was a virus - leaves only yourself to blame here.

Lol yeah, why not remove the virus?

ProperBritish · 11/07/2010 09:34 AM

MSE isn't poo poo

>_>

it's lightweight, fast, unobtrusive and free.
AND effective, it does exactly what it needs to do.

i like it, and it was voted best AV by Lifehacker.

have you even tried MSE, sensei?

ZiNgA BuRgA · 11/07/2010 10:14 PM

(11/07/2010 06:19 AM)SkyDX Wrote: I know it sounds strange Zinga but let me explain:

I have 4 internal HDDs, one had a Vista/7 type MBR two MBRs were empty and the forth must have had an old GRUB on it if I remember correctly.
The BIOS always completed the step "Verifying DMI Pool Data" with success, then the screen simply stayed frozen.

It did this with all HDDs, I tried them one by one. With no HDDs the BIOS would advance to "BOOT DISK FAILURE" which naturally would happen.
So I bought that new HDD and tried to let the BIOS boot from it. Again "BOOT DISK FAILURE" cause it's MBR was empty, the other drives still made the BIOS freeze.

So I installed 7 on the new drive and also EasyBCD. EasyBCD has a option called "Rewrite MBR" which apparently scans all drives for Vista/7 MBRs and rewrites them all. As soon as I did that my original 7 install booted like a charm again. If I select one of my 3 remaining drives the BIOS still freezes like it did.

The only logical explanation I can come to, the MBRs were overwritten with garbage data.

That's most likely not caused by the virus of any sorts.
I've had something similar happen. I don't know the reason, but I've booted into a clean Vista install, and when I reboot, the boot record magically disappears for no apparent reason (I blame Vista). It's probably a stability thing, or some quirk with the Windows bootloader.

Mickey · 11/07/2010 10:25 PM

I have MSE with real-time protection on with a crappy 2.0GHz single-core lappy and I don't notice any slowdowns. I hate when it interferes with my torrents downloading though =.=

SkyDX · 13/07/2010 01:26 PM

(11/07/2010 10:14 PM)ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote:
(11/07/2010 06:19 AM)SkyDX Wrote: I know it sounds strange Zinga but let me explain:

I have 4 internal HDDs, one had a Vista/7 type MBR two MBRs were empty and the forth must have had an old GRUB on it if I remember correctly.
The BIOS always completed the step "Verifying DMI Pool Data" with success, then the screen simply stayed frozen.

It did this with all HDDs, I tried them one by one. With no HDDs the BIOS would advance to "BOOT DISK FAILURE" which naturally would happen.
So I bought that new HDD and tried to let the BIOS boot from it. Again "BOOT DISK FAILURE" cause it's MBR was empty, the other drives still made the BIOS freeze.

So I installed 7 on the new drive and also EasyBCD. EasyBCD has a option called "Rewrite MBR" which apparently scans all drives for Vista/7 MBRs and rewrites them all. As soon as I did that my original 7 install booted like a charm again. If I select one of my 3 remaining drives the BIOS still freezes like it did.

The only logical explanation I can come to, the MBRs were overwritten with garbage data.
That's most likely not caused by the virus of any sorts.
I've had something similar happen. I don't know the reason, but I've booted into a clean Vista install, and when I reboot, the boot record magically disappears for no apparent reason (I blame Vista). It's probably a stability thing, or some quirk with the Windows bootloader.

Well whatever it was it's gone^^

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