Topic: Help! Boot.Malmo virus

[Clive]

A colleague of Mrs Clive's is struggling with the above virus.  Norton picked it up but refuses to deal with it.  He's resorted to reinstalling his operating system yet the virus still persists so he is now considering buying a new hard drive.  I've searched and searched Google for information but can't find anything written in English.  Does anyone know something about this virus?

[Sandra]

Symantec has this on their site Clive :

>how do i remove boot.malmo virus from my computer. my operating
>system is windows xp.

You will want to use your Automated System Recovery to repair the boot
sector on XP.

If that is not available you might be able to use Fdisk /mbr but this
is very risky. All information on the drive could be lost so I would
suggest before you attempt that you check the MS site for additional
information on this.
-------------------------------------------------------------

Is he using XP or ME Clive ?
Did he try turning off system restore then doing a scan in safe mode ?

[Clive]

Thanks very much for that information Sandra.  Yes, he's using XP.  I'll mail it to him straight away.

[Sandra]

If that still doesnt work then do a zero fill with one of the hard drive manufacturers utilities Clive, that will take some time but at least it will totally eradicate it and save him from having to buy a new hard drive  

[Simon]

Don't know of this will help, Clive, but here's a thing which claims to remove boot sector viruses.  It's a 30 day trial, which may be all he needs.

http://www.pspl.com/virus_info/boot/

[Clive]

I've received a reply from him as follows:

Hi Clive,

Thank you for this information and your support.

I have removed the virus and it did require a low level format of the hard drive. This meant I had to destroy the recovery partition on the computer with the factory preset recovery program. Unfortunately the virus was living in this partition. So I had to replace the operating system since the recovery disc was rendered unusable - not a cheap or cheerful
solution!

[Simon]

Does he know how he got it, Clive?

[Sandra]

At least its cheaper than buying a new hard drive and he knows its gone now  

[Clive]

Does he know how he got it, Clive?

Not as far as I'm aware Simon, but I would presume via e-mail.

[Adept]

From what little I can Google, boot.malmo is an ancient 1994-vintage boot sector virus.

I would be curious to know how the hell your friend managed to get infected with that one Clive! Is he running an Abacus-81?

[Clive]

Is it really that old?  That must have been one of the very earliest viruses mustn't it?  I'll mail him and see if I can find out.

[Tony]

That's Vintage Virus material....tell him, it might be worth trying to  sell it on Ebay  

[Clive]

Tony.  

I've received a reply from him as follows:

Hi Clive,

I suspect the boot.malmo was either brought into the house on a floppy disc my daughter had left at school or came in through a mesenger service
she was using. The very fact it was so old meant it was particularly hard to shift. Neither current anti virus software nor current OS or computer configuration is particulalrly aware of this virus.

The other possibility is that someone has redisicovered it and perhaps added a few refinements.