Boot Killer Virus

Virus Name: Boot Killer Aliases: V Status: Rare Discovery: August, 1992 Symptoms: BSC; master boot sector altered; boot failures; hard disk inaccessible Origin: Unknown Eff Length: N/A Type Code: BNX - Non-Resident Boot Sector & Master Boot Sector Infector Detection Method: ViruScan, F-Prot, NAV, IBMAV, NAVDX, AVTK Removal Instructions: DOS SYS on system diskettes, Norton Disk Doctor on hard disk General Comments: The Boot Killer virus was received in August, 1992. Its origin or point of isolation is unknown. Boot Killer is a non-resident infector of the hard disk master boot sector (partition table) and diskette boot sectors. When the system is attempted to be booted from a Boot Killer infected diskette, the Boot Killer virus will be read into memory, and then the system boot will fail, displaying the message: "Non-System disk or disk error Replace and press any key when ready" After the user has replaced the boot diskette, and struck a key, the boot will the proceed. If the boot diskette was a non-write protected diskette, the Boot Killer virus will have infected it, overwriting the original boot sector. At this same time, the virus will have infected the system hard disk's master boot sector, overwriting it as well. Systems infected with Boot Killer will experience frequent boot failures from diskettes, as well as the system hard disk having become inaccessible due to Boot Killer overwriting the master boot sector. Attempts to boot from the system hard disk will result in the same message displayed above. The damage to the hard disk master boot sector can be repaired using various disk diagnostic programs, including Norton Disk Doctor. On system diskettes, the DOS SYS command can be used to replace the infected boot sector.