Just last week I formatted & reinstalled Windows on a person's Dell XP Desktop PC. The installation went fine. She had been having the usual problems of slowing down and being unable to connect to the internet, etc. When I looked at her PC, it was a mess......running sooooo slow.......stuff not working that should be working. That's why I reinstalled Windows. She just called me and said that she was having the same kind of problems as she was having before. I immediately started thinking about a possible boot-sector virus. Here's my questions: 1) How do I check for a boot sector virus. 2) And, if there is a boot-sector virus, how do I go about getting rid of it???

IMHO, I doubt it is a boot sector virus. Here's my reasoning: If the reinstallation went fine as you say and then the problem reappear afterward, it's more likely the result of her internet surfing/download/clicking habits. i_XpUser

XpUser: You could be right. But I just have suspicions that there's something going on that I don't know about. I've never had a failure like this before......I've formatted & reinstalled windows a many, many times, but never have this kind of situation, where the previous problems have returned, and so quickly. So my real quest is to find the answer to the following question: Is there or is there not a boot-sector virus on her PC. pjblevin

How did you format the HD before you reinstalled the OS using Dell OEM XP CD? i_XpUser

On the other hand, if you really believe she have boot sectors virus, check out this thread. This one involves using FDISK, which is a destructive utility. Afterward, you will then have to reformat the HD and reinstall XP. i_XpUser

You can use the XP disk to remove all partitions. That totally hoses the disk of everything and slicks it. You can also use Samsung's free utility called Clearhdd to write 0s to the harddrive, which accomplishes the same thing. Some of these newer commercial Dells and Compaqs have special "hidden" partitions which contain re-imaging files for reinstallations. I have often wondered what would happen if a very clever hacker wrote a virus that would infect that partition (?). Unless you slicked the disk entirely that partition would still remain with only a simple reformat of the main partition. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime; Then industry pollutes the water and kills all the fish.

I work in tech support and we're seeing this virus or "something" spread throughout the offices. Virus scan will detect the virus and says it cleaned it. Ran adware, virus scan, stinger, hijack this.. It has to be somewhere else or something else because after its cleaned it makes apps slow, gives errors or not bring them up. Task Manager will not appear. Doesn't allow access to netwrok drives It then clears the icons off of the desktop and remains that way Techs are reimaging but its not clearing up the issue We noticed it might be an issue with something called NEOMONAP23.exe. I can't find anything in English on it Can you help me out?