Need advice with disk partitions; (should D: be NTFS?)

Everything that has worked best for Win7 install since before it was released is compiled in Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 so look it over and ask back any questions you have about the tools and methods which assure a perfect install.

TDSS also came up clean.

Hopefully I'm clear of rootkits then! Now I just need to find out why I suddenly have a 4th bootrecord

gregrocker said:

Everything that has worked best for Win7 install since before it was released is compiled in Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 so look it over and ask back any questions you have about the tools and methods which assure a perfect install.

That's great, thank you Greg.

I'll remember that in case I get another HP, though I'm a little wary of doing so as they seem to come with a lot of bloatware and the chasis is starting to fall apart after just 2 years

MID

I'm going to go ahead and shut down for the night.

with any luck McAfee community will get back to me about the mystery 4th boot record soon. I'll keep y'all posted

Thanks again,
MID

If you don't have boot problems then don't worry about it. If so or in doubt run Startup Repair.

Otherwise there's no evidence you have "four boot records" but there is evidence that you have something much worse: MucAfee and the HP Factory Preinstall, two of the worst things we see around here.

Whenever we have had a thread here with MucAfee it always turns out to be the problem.

gregrocker said:

If you don't have boot problems then don't worry about it. If so or in doubt run Startup Repair.
MucAfee and the HP Factory Preinstall, two of the worst things we see around here.
Whenever we have had a thread here with MucAfee it always turns out to be the problem.

Wow. I had no idea!

I'll think about this again in the morning. My parents are running McAfee too, though I persuaded them to get a Sony Vaio over another HP system.

If I have any further questions I'll let you know - you've been most helpful

'night!
MID

HP makes good hardware, but any factory preinstall is an inferior Win7 install when compared to a Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 so why not have the best, instead of the worst.

HP also lards in more of the crapware than any other brand, although on more recent models they offer a Minimal Recovery when running HP System Recovery so it redeems them some.

Asus is even better hardware but their preinstalled software is so crappy it defeats the advantage. So again no one should put up with it on an OS they own, to install any way they want.

Ok so i've had this through from McAfee communities:

Moved this from Community Interface Help (ie problems with the site) to Home & Home Office / Virus and Spyware Protection / VirusScan.

Two things here : "Scanning Rootkit" and boot Records.

The wording of that Rootkit message is misleading. We've already had a go at McAfee about this. It means "Scanning for rootkits", not that it's found one. Don't panic. Eventually they'll get around to changing the wording. In the meantime a lot of people get alarmed needlessly.

As for boot records : it's checking the MBR. If it finds an extra record there you should investigate the reason. Run this program and it will tell you what it finds on the MBR - I've downloaded it and tested it. On mine it found only one record.

Download MBRCheck - MajorGeeks


Edit - alternatively there are many other MBR-checkers in the thread at MBR check tools. Use at your own risk, needless to say : I always download this sort of file to a safe place in Chrome, without running it, then upload the file to VirusTotal for checking.

So apparently I should be concerned that It's reading 4 boot records.

It was suggested I download that program, but I wondered if any of you 7 wizards could tell me a way to check without all that?

Thanks,
MID

Anybody?