Virus "Nice" VERY IMPORTANT!

[IhabX7]

hi my hd wont boot (win xp pro) it just shows Virus "Nice" message and stop working. i formatted it and it still same prob!
help me people.

[nomaxim]

Welcome to Techimo.

If you formatted you hdd then you will have to reinstall Win XP as you have basically erased the OS's file system from your hdd.

Questions;
1. What was showing a "Nice" message and how do you know it was a virus?
2. How did you format the hdd?

The only info I could find on a virus called 'Nice' was back in 1994 and it infected DOS systems. Don't think that would affect XP at all.

[Bill in SD, CA]

Welcome to TechIMO!!

You may have a boot sector virus.

Try running the manufacturer's diagnostic disk for the HDD and do a low level format (write zeroes to the drive).

This will restore the drive to 100% blank and you should then be able to re-install XP afterwards.

Bill

[IhabX7]

How do i do that bill, i dont have manufacturer's diagnostic disk.
My hdd is maxtor 40GB 7200rpm. can u explain more?

[Bill in SD, CA]

http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/powermax.htm

Download and extract to a floppy.

Boot from the floppy and follow the instructions.

Bill

[LeftCoast]

Killdisk is a nice free program that is not hard drive brand-specific; it'll work on all hard drives.


You can go to bootdisk.com to D/L a win98 boot disk and then copy the Killdisk program to it. Then boot up to dos, navigate to the floppy drive (probally will be "B:\" drive), type in "killdisk.exe" and follow the instructions. When in dos, navigate to the B drive and type in dir/w. If killdisk is listed there, you're in the right place to type the "killdisk.exe".

I apologize if I'm going into too much detail, but if you don't work much with dos it can be a little confusing.

Links:

http://bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm and click win98 OEM

http://killdisk.com/downloadfree.htm

Also, welcome to Techimo!

[IhabX7]

Killdisk? thats a wierd name isnt it? anyway ima try it! hop it works until i try it suggest another way please.

[darrelld]

BTW...Make sure you write protect your floppies after extracting your files, otherwise they will become infected with the boot sector virus too. And possibly re-infect your hard drive.
Also, boot sector viruses don't come from errant downloads or malicious websites, they have to physically be installed on the machine. So if you actually have a BSV, it is contained on a floppy or some other media that was in it's drive when you booted your machine.

[IhabX7]

it worked! thank you people! ur the greatest!

[MadMan2k]

Doesn't FDISK /MBR fix the boot sector problem?