Be sure you have all programs, drivers and other material at hand to restore your hard drive.
If possible, back up all the important data on your hard drive. Don't forget address books and Internet bookmarks.
Boot up from the floppy drive with a known good boot disk. This can be Disk 1 of MS-DOS, or your Windows 95 or Windows 98 emergency boot disk. Any drive over 2 gig should be prepared using a Windows 95 OSR@ or Windows 98 boot disk. (Don't worry if you are using Windows ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000 or Windows XP. A Windows 98 boot disk can be used to remove the partitions and install a container that will allow you to reinstall your version of Windows. For the purist, remember that we are talking about reformatting, and wiping out all data currently on the drive, anyway.)
When you get to the A:> prompt, run FDISK. Type FDISK and press Enter.
Remove all partitions in the following order:
All assigned drives in extended partitions
Any extended partitions
The primary partition
Exit FDISK, and reboot the computer with the reset button or Ctrl-Alt-Del keys.
When you are back to the A:> prompt, type in exactly the following:
FDISK/MBR
Check to be certain the command looks exactly like the above. NO SPACES! When you are sure the command is typed correctly, press the Enter (Return) Key.
The screen may or may not blink, and should return an A:> prompt. No other message will appear.
You have now written a new Master Boot Record to your hard drive, and have overwritten any virus hidden in the master boot record.
Reboot your computer.
Run FDISK. If using Windows 95B or higher, or Windows 98, you can choose to use FAT-32 large drive partitions. Choose option 1 to create a primary dos partition, then create extended partitions and drives, if you want or need to.
Exit FDISK and reboot the computer.
From the A:> prompt, type FORMAT C: and press Enter. If you want to have the disk bootable, the command is FORMAT C: /S to format and transfer the operating system. |
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