The boot sector code, including of MBR, is executed automatically. Thus, it is the common target for computer viruses. If you notice a disk, which is infected from such viruses, you should not attempt to repair it before removing them. Doing so can completely damage your disk and make your system unable to boot. The safest trick to recover the data is to use a partition recoveryutility and to reformat the disk.
To illustrate, suppose you try to boot a Windows-based computer system. The boot process might fail with symptoms like:
Error “INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE”
Error “MBR_CHECKSUM_MISMATCH”
A black screen appears with a cursor blinking at the top left corner
One of the top reasons for such symptoms is that you hard drive is infected from a stealth virus, such as New York Boot (NYB) virus.
NYB virus infects the Master Boot Record (MBR) of hard drives and thus can render the partitions inaccessible. It infects the system when you boot the computer from a NYB virus infected disk. When active in memory, the virus uses stealth technologies to prevent its detection.
The virus replaces the original MBR with its own code and moves the original MBR at side zero, cylinder zero, sector 17 of hard disk. Thus, whenever the computer tries to read MBR, it goes to sector 17 and the virus remain undetected.
When the drive is infected with a NYB virus, the disk partition table and its pointers are set to offset value. Since the offset are not constant, so use of MBR fixing command like FDISK /MBR or FIXMBR is not recommended. If you use these commands, the entire partitions’ information and computer boot ability is lost.
To solve such issues, you should first remove this virus by using an appropriate antivirus software and then apply the disk repair utilities.
If you fail in your attempts with no access to data, it is suggested to use a powerful partition recoverysoftwareand then reinstall the system. Partition Recoveryutilities are high-end tools with graphically rich user interface and can recover lost, damaged or formatted Windows partitions.
Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery Services are advanced solution known for complete retrieval of lost and missing Windows partitions. It uses powerful scanning algorithms while adhering to data safety. This Windows Partition Recovery Softwareis compatible with Windows 7 RC1, Vista, XP, 2003 and 2000.
Bury Shane is a data recovery expert doing research from last 6 years on exchange recovery and exchange server recovery.
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