possible MBR virus?

i had a version of xp pro installed on the system when i started having problems the other day... i came home from work to find my computer turned off. when i tried to boot it it kept hanging up on the xp boot screen and wouldnt boot in safe mode. i took it that the OS got corrupted somehow so i was just going to reformat but the next version of xp pro i put on there had the same symptoms, i changed hdd's(have 2x 1tb in computer) and disconnected the first one. after formatting and installing it still keeps giving me a BSOD or hanging up at the boot screen. i usually use eset av but one this happened i tried the kaspersky rescue disc to no effect. the reason i think it may be an MBR virus is b/c the xp version im using comes preinstalled with driver packs. after the initial windows setup when it does the runonce command to install the driver packs it gave me an error saying the runonce could not be completed b/c of a possible MBR infection. anyone have any ideas on what to do? the system has 2x 1tb hdd's. both were hooked up when the problem started but after the problem kept happening on the C: drive i unhooked it and formatted the other to install the os on. neither drive can completely boot into windows. if it does make it to windows i get a BSOD with a 0x000002c error.

p.s. neither eset nor kaspersky rescue disc have detected anything so far.

If you do get into windows immediately download/run Malwarebytes it is very good.
If you cant I would say go spend 79.99 on windows 7 it is definitely worth it.
Best Regards,
WretchedMerc

Do you have any other ram modules to throw into the computer... occasionally ram can make it look like its the hard disk's fault. other then that try a different xp disk as i know mine screwed up by having a scratch in it.

ive used 3 versions of xp if you include the one that originally crapped out. the second was xp pro sp3 and the last was a version ive used before and never had a problem with(xp pro black edition 4.19.2009). all 3 versions show the same symptoms with the BSOD's and locking up.

atm i have 8gb of ecc registered ram so ill have to see if its the ram that may be causing it. the xp pro black edition was the one that made me think it may be an MBR virus. during the driver pack install the runonce command had an error and from what i scanned over said it may be a MBR virus.

also atm i cant get into windows at all... if i do get in its only for ~1sec and then i get a BSOD.


BSOD error:

bad_pool_caller
0x000000c2 (0x00000007 0x00000cd4 0x02040001 0x899451f8)

i googled this last night but didnt find anything..


when i could get into xp i did notice boot sector errors in event viewer but now i cant even get into windows.

Give Trinity rescue kit a try. I have cleared up similar issues with it before. You will need another computer with CD burning capabilities though.

Heh, I would help you out with that (it's not even an MBR virus), but because of the way you treated me you can go to hell.

I'd try memtest86 to check to see if your ram is the problem, or I suppose you could try removing all but one stick..
Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool

If you want to overwrite the MBR, there's a number of ways to do it, but the most surefire way would probably be DBAN...
Darik's Boot And Nuke | Hard Drive Disk Wipe and Data Clearing

If you're still having problems, you may have a dying hard drive on your hands... You may want to download the diagnostic utility from your hard drive manufacturer..
WD: http://support.wdc.com/download/dlg/Diag504fCD.iso
Seagate: http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/support/seatools/SeaToolsDOS217EURO.ISO

All of the above utilities are ISO files to be burned to a CD... I guess if you don't have a working computer with a burner, you may be out of luck. If you want a single utilities disc that has all of the above on it, you can check out Hiren's Boot CD, it's got lots of great stuff on it. It includes unauthorized licensed software though, so you'll have to find it on a torrent site.

It could be a bad mobo but try what others have said and run memtest86 first.

Pete

f22warzone said:

Do you have any other ram modules to throw into the computer... occasionally ram can make it look like its the hard disk's fault. other then that try a different xp disk as i know mine screwed up by having a scratch in it.

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I agree.
Possible bad stick?

You can also try to run fixboot from the recovery menu.

I've had that blue screen before, I'm fairly sure it's a RAM problem. Try reseating it or maybe remove a few sticks to see if you can find one that could be dead etc.

im not sure whats going on at the moment. i removed the video card, sound card, and all but one ram stick. i tested all the sticks one by one to see if it was a particular one but i got the bsod on them all until i did a full format that took about 4 hrs since its a 1tb hdd. it seems to be stable for the moment..

there was 2 reasons i thought it may be something with the MBR.. when i could get into windows on the version that crapped out i looked in event viewer and noticed boot sector errors. the second thing was thatwhen installing xp pro black the runonce failed with the "possible MBR virus" error. ive still got to put the video card, sound card and other ram back in. so ill just see if i can narrow down what it was.

@mfo WAHH-WAHH baby. grow up and find something constructive to do.

Bad boot sectors are definitely not a software based problem. It's when the computer works sometimes, and sometimes doesn't when it gets tricky to troubleshoot.

My brother has a computer he put together a while ago, and it has been nothing but a PITA right from the start. It only boots probably 1 in 10 times, so you have to restart it a few times before it boots properly, and even then he gets frequent BSOD's when he's playing games. Still haven't found the exact problem, but it seems to be a video card issue.

mfo said:

Heh, I would help you out with that (it's not even an MBR virus), but because of the way you treated me you can go to hell.

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Yeah, Andrew can be a bit of a dick at times, but your post really isn't productive at all. A better course of action would be simply to avoid replying to his threads. A bigger man would help him anyway, regardless of how he's treated you in the past. He's been a dick to me in the past, yet I did spend a good ten minutes trying to help in any way I could. It's kinda immature to reply only to say "I'm not helping you." That sort of thing is only bound to start arguments.

ndrew2505 said:

@mfo WAHH-WAHH baby. grow up and find something constructive to do.

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Yeah, that's not helping. Ignore him if you can't find something constructive to say. If it comes down to it, there's an "ignore list" feature under the "usercp". Otherwise, berating people in your help thread only serves to make people want to help you less.

Consider a motherboard problem. Those "multi-hardware" mysterious problems are usually caused by it. With "it's stable for the moment", you mean that it actually loaded without errors, or that you did a stability test successfully? Try everest ultimate to run a full stability test. If it doesn't pass it, post here the results.

pseudolobster said:

Yeah, Andrew can be a bit of a dick at times, but your post really isn't productive at all. A better course of action would be simply to avoid replying to his threads. A bigger man would help him anyway, regardless of how he's treated you in the past. He's been a dick to me in the past, yet I did spend a good ten minutes trying to help in any way I could. It's kinda immature to reply only to say "I'm not helping you." That sort of thing is only bound to start arguments.


Yeah, that's not helping. Ignore him if you can't find something constructive to say. If it comes down to it, there's an "ignore list" feature under the "usercp". Otherwise, berating people in your help thread only serves to make people want to help you less.

Click to expand...

Heh, "a bit" is an understatement.