Bootloader restoration/modification.

[baumaxx1]

Hi all,

I've had my Win 7 x64 install infected with a rootkit (surprisingly from a seemingly innocent site... probably hacked), and the 0Access variant looks as though it's only user level on a 64 bit machine. So, MBR and BIOS are clean, and GMER isn't detecting anything after a system restore.

So now after a bit of background the main point;

- I'm currently wiping the Win 7 HDD and preparing for a re-install to get rid of some clutter and make sure the system is clean for sure. Originally I had XP on a separate drive and installed 7 on another. This method just modifies XP's bootloader if I understand correctly.

- Disconnecting all but the Win 7 drive will not boot. The XP drive handles boot duties.

- I'm thinking of putting the XP drive back in and installing 7 again as before and hopefully it's pretty automatic. In theory, it's as if I'm starting with XP pre-installed right? Only thing is there may be a record of the previous W7 install. Hopefully easyBCD could correct this.

Let me know your thoughts on this... does this seem like an easy way to go about it?

The other thing I wanted to ask is that the dual boot (2 separate drives) was intended to still give me access in the event of a single HDD failure, but that's not really the case. Is there anyway to set up boot-loaders for both systems or manage it better, so the computer is still functional without one of the HDDs?

Thanks for your help in advance.

[rusiakid]

Hey Mate,

Have you tried GRUB or XSOL, both of are really powerful compared to the windows boot loader the only downside is that with grub is you need to install a linux distro first for it to work. (I Think)

XSOL is really good as it boots almost anything.

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

xOSL provides a graphical user interface which allows the user to set up and boot a computer into any of 24 different operating systems. xOSL is nondenominational bootloader, owing allegiance to no system in particular, and booting them all equally well.

[peteed1985]

to get your XP working after 7 failed you need to get a boot floppy or CD with fdisk on it and do a

fdisk /mbr

Thing is installing 7 after XP replaces the XP boot loader with its own files in your MBR which point to the windows 7 boot files in your windows 7 HDD and its the windows 7 boot files that allow you to get into XP and thats why when the 7 is gone 7's boot loader won't work and you can't get into either. Hence why the command for fdisk replacing the MBR would get XP working again.

As rusiakid said get a 3rd party boot loader and that should fix alot of your issues.

Boot CD is easy to make on a working PC and fdisk which you want to add you can download off the net very easy.