TIP: backup your MBR

[Gabethebabe]

The MBR is a rather popular target for today´s infections, TDL4 and Whistler/Black Internet, to name a few. Any malware fighter will be able to inform you how to overwrite the infected MBR with a clean one. But sometimes it gets more complicated that that.

Pre-installed computers often have a customized MBR, allowing for factory restore options, for example. A customized MBR is hard to recuperate, unless you have the original Windows install disk available. Most tools will be able to write a standard MBR, losing the factory restore options.

So if you have a computer without the original Windows install disk, you should consider doing the following:
Run [url=http://ad13.geekstogo.com/MBRCheck.exe]MBRCheck to see if it recognizes your MBR. If it does not, make a backup of your MBR.

Go to the Systemintegrasjon AS website [url=http://www.sysint.no/products/Download/tabid/536/language/en-US/Default.aspx]here. Various products are being offered on this website, find MBRFix and click the download link to download this tool.

• Unpack the zip archive and extract MBRFix.exe to your desktop
• Go to Start > Run, copy/paste the following (including the quotes):

  "%userprofile%\desktop\MBRFix" /drive 0 savembr "%userprofile%\desktop\MBR_0.dat"

  and hit Enter.
• A file named MBR_0.dat will appear on your desktop, containing the backup of your Master Boot Record.
• Store this file in a safe place.

NOTE: in some foreign language Windows the desktop folder is not named "Desktop" (e.g. Spanish = "Escritorio"). You will have to change the quoted script accordingly, otherwise it will fail.

[Ceyfer √]

Or just avoid those notorious banking trojans and malwares! Sometimes, it is really a hassle to secure and fix your MBR. So make sure it stay always virgin!

[bogdan]

Good suggestion, Gabethebabe. Being security conscious also means having a backup that you can resort to when prevention fails. Most disk imaging software also allows you to backup your MBR along with your system partition.

[Murphy]

Hi,
Thanks guys .
Valuable informations for those who know how to use them .
Best regards !

---------- Post added at 10:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:49 PM ----------

Good suggestion, Gabethebabe. Being security conscious also means having a backup that you can resort to when prevention fails. Most disk imaging software also allows you to backup your MBR along with your system partition.

Hi,

Welcome among us at Raymond.CC Forum !

We hope that you will feel good here and stay with us as much.

Best regards !

[Bearcat]

It is always a good idea to back your whole system up as well as the MBR. I probably "overkill" with backups stored on 3 separate HDD's, but after having one fail on me, I wanted to be sure I always more backups available. I really hate having to start all over from scratch.

[hellnoire]

It is always a good idea to back your whole system up as well as the MBR. I probably "overkill" with backups stored on 3 separate HDD's, but after having one fail on me, I wanted to be sure I always more backups available. I really hate having to start all over from scratch.

Four hard drives, two on a server built just for backing up.

You're only as paranoid as your last failed hard drive.