Is this a virus? Taskbar has gone!

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T - 30 Jul 2008 23:11 GMT

My computer running XP Professional suffered a sudden slow down and the
Taskbar shrank is size. After a reboot the Taskbar disappeared. It is not
hidden as the start menu does not respond to the Windows Flag key.

I reformatted the drive only to have the same problem reoccur a day later.
I reloaded using the original media which I have successfully used before.
I did however use fresh copies of Avast Anti Virus and Zonealarm downloaded
with another PC and scanned with Avast which indicated that they are both
clean.

The only explanation I can think of is a boot sector virus. Is this
possible after the disc was reformatted and is their a way I can know for
sure? Is there a way to wipe the boot sector completely. Avast insists
that the PC is clean.

Thanks.

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Bruno - 31 Jul 2008 22:06 GMT

> My computer running XP Professional suffered a sudden slow down
> and the Taskbar shrank is size. After a reboot the Taskbar
> disappeared. It is not hidden as the start menu does not respond
> to the Windows Flag key.

> I reformatted the drive only to have the same problem reoccur a
> day later. I reloaded using the original media which I have
> successfully used before.

Did you *boot* from the original *CD*? Did you password protect the
Administrator account after installing Windows?

> I did however use fresh copies of Avast Anti Virus and Zonealarm
> downloaded with another PC and scanned with Avast which indicated
> that they are both clean.

> The only explanation I can think of is a boot sector virus.
> Is this possible after the disc was reformatted and is their a way
> I can know for sure?
> Is there a way to wipe the boot sector completely.

FixBoot (Recovery Console) overwrites the boot sector, and FixMBR overwrites
the first 460 bytes of the Master Boot Record.

> Avast insists that the PC is clean.

It might not be a virus.

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