PC acting reall weird. Boot sector virus?

[d3v]

Hi all.

I have a desktop PC here that is acting very strange.
Windows XP reformats and installs fine but then upon the reboot nothing else happens.

Also only 1 or 2 of my boot disks actually work, the rest like Microsoft ERD Commander do not boot. Weird.

I think it's a boot sector virus, maybe?

 

[00meat]

Have you tried disconnecting the HD then trying to boot to cd or usb?
it could be a problem with the hard drive where it says it wrights, but nothing is sticking, I know a tech. who had this problem with installing a service pack, but upon reboot it wasn't installed.

 

[iisjman07]

When you say nothing else happens, do you mean it shows the black screen with a white flashing cursor?

 

[phaZed]

I sincerely doubt that windows completed a full install with a bad drive. There is error checking and write verification that takes place. Data doesn't go to a drive and then "not stick"...

d3v,
Can you give us some specs on what brand/model computer you are working with?

I have had a slew of Dell Inspiron 1505/1525 series computers in the past month that have failing HDD controllers (motherboard). They also exhibited strange behavior while booting from USB and CD's as well. Many times on a failing controller, low level, basic disk operation works fine (eg. Win installation), but upon booting in "Enhanced" mode with faster transfer rates, the controller chokes up. This can also explain why some of your boot disks work while others do not.

If you want to make sure you don't have a BootSec virus just do a full format on the drive, a DOD if your paranoid. The Windows installation, however, should be writing a new MBR (so long as you do a FULL format, and not quick format)

A good thing to do would be to run a surface test on the disk, preferrably on a different machine. If it shows clean then run a couple of passes with Memtest86+ and check out the memory.

 

[ZenTree]

I'd second removing the hard drive and seeing if your other boot disks actually load then. Wouldn't jump on the boot sector virus bandwagon just yet, lot more things to check out.

 

[meanderer]

I second the suggestions here, my first guess is a bad hdd. Give it a test. I had bad hdd's that totally stops the computer from booting.