How to wipe this hard drive clean like new, formated #4 linux when finished.W/D 500 GB

If it's an MBR virus, you might not have to reinstall the OS.

First, try booting to a live CD and formatting the MBR.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-query-606489/

Then, if necessary, repair grub:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Re...tallingWindows

If you still have to reinstall, the MBR will now be clean.

1 members found this post helpful.

Just boot to a LiveCD and use gparted to format the drive.

If that sounds too tough just install Ubuntu using the whole disk option.

I would format the drive ahead of installation myself. An install with a / partition, a /home partition and then your small /swap is, in my view, a lot better than installing on just a / (root0 partition.

I have never heard of virus on the MBR and can't imagine why anyone would write one, not that I am an expert on virus'.

Because the MBR is accessed very early in the boot process. Virus code stored in the MBR can pwn the computer before Windows even starts loading.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/l.../cc977223.aspx

or if you prefer not to access a Microsoft domain

http://google.com/search?q=mbr+virus

BTW papaabert, Please consider making two copies of your important files on different media before wiping the hard disk. Nothing sucks more than losing all your data because of a lousy virus

Thanks a bunch. Never would have dreamed. Learn something new all the time.

Think that would have a hard time on a Linux box unless you had auto login as root.

I do not mind going to MS sites, the Dreaded Mother in Law has a MS box that I try to keep up. It will get infected one of these days as she will not have much security on the bugger. I do have it booting with grub from an install of Ubuntu 8.04 (have to change that one of these days) that I have all her stuff backed up on.

That is in her house. You guys would be welcome if you are passing through these parts but any device using an MS OS will not come in this house. You can leave them across the street at her house.

EDIT;
Just read that link. It seems to indicate just destruction of the OS. Seems like there are more opportunitiesthere than that. That is also about MS 2000 so I suppose the virus' are better now. I quit with Win98. I still think that was the cream of their crop.

MS Dos with DosShell was my favorite of the MS stable. Amazing the work you can do with floppies and a 64 bit computer.

Maybe not so hard a time as you may think. A virus which is loaded into memory with the MBR can take control of the boot process and insert itself anywhere it likes. If such a virus were designed to self-replicate within a Linux environment it could do so as root. I don't claim to have proof of concept for this, but it is conceivable and may already have been done.

It's just that some people here seem to have extreme reactions to the mere mention of anything about Microsoft. I don't want to be responsible for inadvertently inviting flames here. That article seemed relevant to OP's situation because he specified the Windows connection, and because the article itself is pretty lucid.

The MBR vector is open for all modern operating systems AFAIK.

I wonder why that vector for attack is not used more often. Seems kind of slick in a very sick way.

One thing the bad guys take into account is how easy it is to accomplish their purpose.

MBR viruses used to be extremely common 15 or 20 years ago, when the purpose of viruses was primarly vandalism, as opposed to stealing information and setting up botnets.

They were spread easily through the boot sectors of floppy disks, since a lot of data was transferred via sneakernet.

MS Word macro viruses were also popular back in those days as MS Word beat out Word Perfect by virtue of the Microsoft Marketing Mauling Machine. Then, with the increase in personal email and the www, came email payloads, phishing, and trojans.

Attacking the MBR via an email trojan would be a mightily difficult thing to do reliably. Even the famous Sony rootkit was delivered by physical media inserted in a drive.

1 members found this post helpful.

I found a program among many and created a live disk.Nuked, burned, blasted erased wiped cust the MBR virus . I won. I burned alot of 000000000000000 in the MBR and destroyed the binary what fowled my drive. Again thanks for the ideas. I am still very new to Linux
lost but not forgot. I know so little about Linux , don't even know what to ask??

Spend some time searching around LQ for topics which interest you. Don't forget these excellent Ubuntu resources as well:

• https://help.ubuntu.com/
• http://ubuntu-manual.org/
• http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Maverick

The ubuntuguide.org bunch is great. Just follow their directions on setting up and you will not go very far wrong. A lot of real good stuff there that makes it easy for a noob to set up like a pro.

I know this for a fact as I was lucky enough to discover it when I started. Still keep it bookmarked to point other folks to it.