Windows Vista Blog

You wake up one day and like normal you go over to your pc to check youe e-mail and surf the web. You turn your computer on and as windows starts to boot you get a fatal error or the system keeps looping. After speaking with a friend he mentions it might just be a boot sector virus and he can remove it for free. Let me stop you right there for a a second. While free help is always nice, you must realize that if you let someone even if they know what they are doing fix your computer you stand a chance of loosing all your data. This case is even higher with boot sector virus errors. The standard FDISK/MBR may work but then again you may find it does more harm then good.

Boot sector virus removal is a pretty simple thing to do but if done wrong it can result in a lot of bigger problems. Boot sector virus removal can also potentially result in the need to reformat your hard drive which means you need to wipe your hard drive clean and reload your Windows. Now would be a good time to tell you that regular back ups of your PC are always a good idea. Your computer’s hard drive is broken up into different sectors depending on how many partitions you need to run your computer. Your first sector is always your boot sector and your boot sector always contains your MBR or your Master Boot Record. Some viruses attack your boot sector and make it impossible for you to boot your computer. If you do what nerdy did and type in the general fix of FDISK/MBR then you run the risk of making things worse because that command will rewrite your boot sector for you and get rid of the virus but it will not do any of the customized boot procedures that could be in your MBR. If those customizes boot procedures are gone then your computer will not boot and you are in trouble.

The Right Way Is The Best Way

The best way to do a boot sector virus removal is to boot your computer with a non-infected boot disk and then run an anti-virus program on it. Boot sector virus removal is pretty important because the wrong move can render your computer helpless and some of the viruses today have mechanisms built in that can trigger a huge series of problems if you address your boot sector virus removal concerns incorrectly. So be smart and use a program designed by professional virus removers. Another way is to remove that hard drive and place it in another computer. Run the anti-virus program on the computer and do a scan of the hard drive you just installed.

A boot sector virus is not the end of the world and boot sector virus removal, if done properly, can be a relatively successful venture. The key is to not skimp on free programs or bad advice and get the process done right the first time. Bad attempts to repair your boot sector can snowball into huge problems down the line that could result in the loss of all of your data so do a regular back up and make sure you invest in good anti virus software. Free programs such as AVG and Avast work well but having been in the field for many years do not give you the protection you really need. I would also recommend going with an internet security suit. This will give you virus, spyware, firewall and generally spam protection. For a full listing and reviews check out our vista software review page