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Can anyone tell me how I can be sure theres no virus hiding in my bios? I thought that when you format everything would be clean and safe from virus, but Ive been told that a virus could still be hiding in youre bios even after format. Is there a way to format the bios? or at least check for virus in it? thx
Name: Bill McMinn Date: June 25, 2002 at 10:13:18 Pacific
Reply:
I've never heard of a virus hiding in the BIOS. I know the newer strains of the Chernobyl virus flash the BIOS to destroy it. If there is a persistant virus hiding in your computer it's probably hiding in the boot sector of your hard drive. Get a boot disk for your version of Windows and start up your computer with it. At the A: prompt type in fdisk /mbr that will put in a fresh boot sector. But also scan your computer with an up to date anti-virus program to find any other files that may be infected with viruses.
I agree with Bill. If you have a Bios virus you would probably know it right away.
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Response Number 3
Name: mike Date: June 25, 2002 at 10:50:53 Pacific
Reply:
the bios cannot be "formatted". it has nothing to do with windows or windows files...that isnt to say that your MBR cannot ahve one but, if you must, you can clear/reset the cmos but...there is no virus "hiding" in there ready to jump out and grab you....
A virus CAN reside in the approx. SAME LOCATION as the BIOS, on those models of COMPAQs that write part of the BIOS on the HDD (e.g.: Form.A virus, Form.B virus).
Form viruses can reside there, dormant, for a long time before activating (for example, by forgetting a diskette in the floppy drive when one re-boots).
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