How to Write a Boot Sector to a Flash Drive

John Ruiz reports:

"Some viruses and malware can infect the boot sector of your flash drive. This can occur right when you plug the flash drive into an infected system. Plugging the infected flash drive [into] an office computer may cause various problems to the entire office network. An infected boot sector not only serves as a hiding spot for the virus but it can also prevent your flash drive from booting properly if you made your own bootable USB drive or Windows 7 installer in the past. Use an application to write a clean boot sector to your flash drive so the booting capabilities function normally again...Download BOOTICE from the Pendriveapps website...Open the BOOTICE file after it finishes and launch the BOOTICE application inside...Click the 'Process MBR' button to see the available options for writing boot sectors to your USB drive. Choose the 'Windows NT 6.x MBR' option if your USB flash drive contains a Windows 7 installer. Choose the 'GRUB4DOS' option if your drive has other bootable content...Click the 'Install / Config' button and confirm you wish to write a boot sector to your drive. Restart your computer [with] your flash drive still plugged in and see if you can finally boot. Repeat the previous steps and try another option if you still cannot boot...Install and run RMPrepUSB after downloading. Choose the flash drive that needs a new boot sector from the top list box...Choose a bootloader option from the '3 Bootloader Options' box. This will determine the type of boot sector written to your flash drive...Select the 'FAT32' option from the '4 Filesystem and Overrides' group if your flash drive has a capacity of more than 2,000 MB. Otherwise, choose the 'FAT16' option...Click the '6 Prepare Drive' button to format your flash drive and write the boot sector afterward...Insert any Windows 7 installation DVD into your system's optical drive. Plug in the flash drive that will get the boot sector. Click the 'Start' button and then click 'Computer.' Take note of the drive letter that points to your flash drive. Double-click the drive that contains your Windows 7 installation disc...Hold the 'Shift' key on your keyboard and right-click the 'Boot' folder. Click 'Open command window here' to bring up the Command Prompt...Type 'bootsect /nt60 #:' (without quotes) where '#' represents the drive letter of your flash drive. This will write the necessary boot sector so you can install Windows 7 from the flash drive...In BOOTICE, click the 'Backup MBR' button if you want a copy of your boot sector before writing a new one. You can use the 'Restore MBR' button whenever you wish to restore the backup...Back up any existing files on your flash drive if you will use the RMPrepUSB solution because that program erases all files on the drive before writing the boot sector."