Virus question.

[Bill Stanley]

Hi,

Maybe a bit of history is in order here...

Thankfully the problem does not affect my computer but affects my 
sisters computer.  She dual boots - Ubuntu and Windows XP (SP3) and 
unfortunately mostly uses Windows.  Earlier this year, I installed Avast 
and I set it up to send an email alert to me when it runs into a virus. 
  After several months of no alerts from her computer, I finally got 
one, an alert that the win32:Aluroot-C virus was encountered. Now the 
Ubuntu part of the question.

Some research shows that it is a rootkit.  Since she dual boots with 
GRUB is the Linux part still safe?  I am almost certain that it will be 
unaffected.  While the Windows partition might be trashed the Linux 
partition still is usable (I hope).  Since this is a rootkit, does it 
insinuate itself before GRUB?  What I also read is that manual removal 
is probably the only sure way to get rid of it.  I plan to dual boot the 
Ubuntu partition and manually clean out the Windows partition.  Will 
using Linux to delete the Windows partition be reliable.

Bill Stanley