Viruses attacking disk system areas

There are a very large number of viruses which are capable to attack the system area of the hard disks. However, only several of them are the "combined viruses" which are able to infect files and spread with the help of files. Therefore we can say, with a small objection only, that if you have found a virus in the system area of a disk (boot virus), it happened when you were trying to start-up the computer from the diskette. It does not matter whether you managed to do it or not. If there was a virus on the diskette in question, it has infected your computer regardless to the operating system which you currently use.

It is fully useless to think or even persuade somebody that e.g. the virus "J&M" called also "JiMi" entered into your computer by reading data from the diskette only. Simply this is not true, whoever may tell it to you. It is simply nonsense.

An exception is e.g. the virus "OneHalf", which can spread also by means of files, which means that by executing the file infected the computer will be infected. Similar viruses are, however, very, very rare.

Procedure for removal: start up the system from your system diskette and run the following program: fdisk /MBR of the appropriate operating system. It is only important that this diskette should not be infected by a virus. After you have performed these commands successfully, the virus will be removed from the system areas of the disk operating Microsoft Windows 95 and NT

If you manage to start up the operating system, you have practically won. You can make use of the restoring capabilities of the operating system which are built into it, and they will care for the rest. If you, however, do not manage to start up the operating system at all, it is a disaster.