major 2k issues, need help

ok, here is the low down: we have a windows 2000 network of ibm netvista workstations. all these are loaded by ghost with a loadset made by some **** head at an undisclosed location, however i think the loadset is irrellevant since this problem has occurred on more than one model number of workstation and each model number has a different loadset.

whats the problem? a workstation crashes with a blue screen, kernel error, then when the machine is rebooted it come up with no operating system found. look in the bios and the hdd is in fact detected so i boot to the 2000 startup disks and use recovery console and do a fixmbr. i reboot the machine and all is well. what the hell happened to the mbr?

the time table here is irrelevant but we will say next day, another blue screen. so i reboot, no os found, look in bios no hdd found either. gee thats not good, the hdd was there yesterday now its gone. what to do, all i know is to replace the hdd now, im guess the hdd will be fixed with a low level format but we arent allowed to do that. it has to go back to the leasing companies fix-it people who prolly send it back the manufacturer do to warranty purposes. im not sure weather a low level format will fix it or not but i will make some phone calls and find out. im thinking it will since this has happened on various models of hdds.

so far this has happened on 3 different workstations. 2 of which were new models, the other was a the model from the previous lease shipment. could a virus be corrupting the mbr this bad? after the hdd is replace no more problems have occurred so far. the fact that the machines are different models and different loadsets really concerns me since that seems to eliminate hardware and the loadset as problems.

any input here would be greatly appreciated.

You're sure the loadsets being used are configured for the hardware they're being used on?

Other than that, I really don't know. Could be a virus of some sort. Try TrendMicro on one of the machines that's running, if they have internet access.

http://housecall.antivirus.com/

It sounds like you're absolutely correct with the bad loadset hypothesis. Is there a way that you could cut through the red-tape of the corporate world you live in and do an fdisk/format/reinstall on these machines? It sounds like there's a discrepancy on the mbr versus what the rigs are actually running.

If you have an corporate AV program that's worth it's weight in spit you shouldn't be having virus issues with the mbr. HD attacks are well known and recognizable (or so I've read) thus, should be picked up by your AV proggy.

I would take the next workstation that goes fubar and fdisk, format, and reinstall and see what happens. You really don't want to be doing any work on the mbr unless you absolutely have to.

Wedo