Hi guys, got this e-mail from a friend today asking for help. He lives a long way away from me so I'm not able to physically get to the machine itself.

I've e-mailed him back asking for details of how exactly he caught it and told him to install some free anti-virus software. I've known of certain viruses that would corrupt or clear the BIOS but I don't know of any that would actually reside in the BIOS so to speak. Could it be living in the MBR? Would that be wiped after a format?

The only thing I can think of, is the virus must reside in the bootsector of the drive.

Your friend needs to use a utility that will wipe the boot sector as well as the rest of the drive.

Look at this thread HERE for a list of hard drive utilities.

Regards Howard

Of course the other possibility is that your friend
doesn`t know enough about staying safe on the internet as he should do.
It only takes 30 seconds without a firewall or one bad download.

No virus can survive a full format and clean install.

Infected boot CD maybe.? That can happen with "non-standard" XP CDs

There is such a thing as a virus that will corrupt the BIOS,
and make the computer unbootable,but that`s not the problem your friend has.