BSOD and MBR

coloradogeek99

So I have just been doing some reading and I read that a BSOD can be caused by a corrupt Master Boot Record. Now this would occur because a virus has infected the MBR. When I went to Microsoft's website just to read what they said about this issue, they said this only happens on Windows XP? I just can't see it only happening on XP, it should happen on Vista/7 as well right? I am doing this research because I am writing a paper on how I would fix this issue. Wouldn't you just launch into WinRE's Command Prompt type bootrec /fixmbr and then launch the OS and run your anti-virus program?

Bryzey

There are many different reasons why a Bsod can occur.

Generally you would load the **** file that the Bsod creates into a program such as bluescreenview to see what is causing the issue. Then from there you could troubleshoot the issue.

Others may have a different approach. I know you can uses windows debugging tools to troubleshoot but I have not acquired that skill just yet.

jibbajabba

Likely because up to XP the boot.ini was basically the pointer of the boot record. If you'd point the boot.ini to a different partition / drive etc., you'd easy get a BSOD .. The boot record structure has changed with Windows 7 and up and you cannot easily break it the ways you could with XP etc.

You could even just pop the boot.ini. NTDETECT and NTLDR onto a floppy disk and boot your 2003 server from it. Just shows how easily you could corrupt the thing as well (and fix easier too - whichever way you look at it).