The Touchy Subject Of Boot Sector Virus Removal
One day you are outside talking to your nerdy know-it-all next door neighbor and you mention that your computer won't boot up. It gets to the part in the boot sequence where it would normally display the Windows title page and it fails. Your neighbor announces you need a boot sector virus removal and offers to take care of the problem for you for no charge at all because he knows it all. You are happy that someone can help and accept your nerdy neighbor's assistance. Your nerdy neighbor sits at your PC, types in FDISK/MBR, and then quietly exits the room leaving you in worse shape than you were in before know-it-all showed up.
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.
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.
