Can a virus attack my BIOS to disable the DVD drive?

Posted by user636547 on Super User See other posts from Super User or by user636547
Published on 2011-02-27T14:57:09Z Indexed on 2011/02/27 15:26 UTC
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virus

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bios

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dvd

A friend's laptop DVD drive is suddenly no longer detected. It's going to be difficult to walk him through going into the BIOS (he's not local). I wonder if it is even worthwhile i.e. whether the BIOS settings can be corrupted by a virus. Are BIOS settings formatted in a standard way such that a virus writer would know what to alter? FYI, he did reinstall the OS and the drive is still not detected.

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