NationStates Jolt Archive

I use Windows XP. How could I get rid of it?

format C: /y

Reinstall the Internet

format C: /y

Formatting leaves the partition sector untouched.

Formatting leaves the partition sector untouched.

I was being facetious since your post was so vague. I'm guessing that's a virus. I'd google the virus name and see if there are removal tools/instructions on the net.

Nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

More seriously. Install a real boot loader, and a real operating system.

I was being facetious since your post was so vague. I'm guessing that's a virus. I'd google the virus name and see if there are removal tools/instructions on the net.

Already done that and tried some utilities but no effect.

Remove the hard drive, find a sledgehammer. Make with the beating.

Then get something better than Windows (yes, I use Vista - I just can't be bothered to learn how to use something else).

Does "FDISK /FIXMBR" work against that?

(Do you even have FDISK available to you, easily, in WinXP? Because of the way that a Linux install on top of my WinXP one makes the WinXP installation disk incapable of booting up from when I want to 'zero' the install by reinstalling it, freezing at the hardware-detection process. Thus I have to get rid of the GRUB as well before doing this, and I do that with a DOS 6.22 boot-floppy with the appropriate version of FDISK on it, a relic of happier days... ;))

Warning: Don't mess with FDISK just on my say so. Do it wrong and there are possibly dire consequences. Find some reliable tutorial. Or, even better, find a specific removal suite. And, boy, is it a long time since I've seen an MBR-infecting virus...

Hang on, let's see... Right, I'm partly right, look at http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/midonehalf3544.html and note the warning of "If the virus is simply removed from the boot sector, encrypted data will be lost." under Description, but the primary solution is to /FIXMBR, but only after backing up, requires total reformatting (and hence re-installation) and then putting things back. With a weather eye to making sure that you're not reinfecting as you go.

Get some good AV on there ASAP. What is good AV is always a matter of opinion, and you might be happy with something free or want to go for one or other of the commercial ones.

http://www.econsultant.com/spyware-database/how-to-remove-dropper.html

More seriously. Install a real boot loader, and a real operating system.
Also known as "ignore everything I have to say."


Then get something better than Windows (yes, I use Vista - I just can't be bothered to learn how to use something else).
Come the fuck on. An anti-Windows purist who uses Windows? This just gets more absurd.

It's been a while since I heard of someone getting an MBR virus.
Good luck.

Also known as "ignore everything I have to say."
Snip

Not necessarily, moving to a new boot loader while still booting windows and provide some features like boot loader level passwording that can discourage this sort of thing in the future

And for multiple OS install grub or lilo are awesome alternatives but that all depends on what you are planning to do with the machine...

As described before I would probably do a format and a fixmbr to start with ...

It's been a while since I heard of someone getting an MBR virus.
Good luck.

Me too ... last one I had dealt with was transmitted via floppy

Me too ... last one I had dealt with was transmitted via floppy

These days you get these things via those USB drives.

Come the <strawberry> on. An anti-Windows purist who uses Windows? This just gets more absurd.

Don't know about the target of your tirade, but I quite like non-Windows OSes, but still use them when it 'works'. In-between my legs (ooer) is my Windows 98 machine connected to two of the displays on my desk, to the left on the side-desk is the machine I briefly mentioned that is XP Pro but has Fedora on it as well (when I'm not rezeroing it), to the right of my knees there's a box that should be XP Home, but I've tripped over an issue with the OEM putting a restore partition on it that really burgered up my last attempt to reinstall (after chasing the shop to get the disks they'd long-ago forgotten to include in the package), in the other room I have an W2K machine happily recording the radio for me, in the room behind me there's an old machine (P166) running not-quite-so-old Corel Linux and my P133 with Win95 (the latter not plugged in, admittedly, but it's the one I put the TV card in years ago), while on a shelf in the cupboard is a rather interesting machine known as a Cambridge Workstation whose OS is known as "PANOS", although I fear I've forgotten a lot about how to work in "Pandora" over the last couple of decades, and I really ought to do something more with it than to make esoteric code in Forth skills (which I could do on any of the other platforms, admittedly).

And I won't mention the two BBC Model Bs in my attic (but have occasionally coupled up to the CW and through that my network), if only because they strain the definition of 'OS' unless you count the DOS I could run on them via the Torch Graduate if the 5.25"ers weren't a little corrupt by now... ;) But anyway, by now you'll have worked out I'm not a purely Windows person, but it does have it place. Well, apart from Windows ME. My Dad got an ME machine and of all the MS OSes I must say that's the worst I've seen. Would be better off with Windows 3.1, really. ;)

Not that the above has much to do with the MBR-infecting virus, but I feel you're not bothered about that...