According to The Register, a batch of laptops pre-installed with Windows Vista Home Premium has been infected with a 13-year-old boot sector virus.

The consignment of infected Medion laptops – which could number anything up to 100,000 shipments – had been sold in Danish and German branches of retail giant Aldi. The computers had been loaded with Microsoft’s latest operating system Vista and Bullguard’s anti-virus software, which failed to detect and remove the malware.

Bullguard says on its website, “Stoned.Angelina is a low-risk boot virus that infects the MBR (Master Boot Record) of hard disks. This is a very old virus. Apart from its ability to spread from computer to computer, it carries no payload (damage) to the systems it infects.”

Virus Bulletin technical consultant John Hawes said, “This is a reminder that old viruses never really die. Malware that’s been off the radar for years often pops up when least expected, after someone digs out an old floppy or boots up an ancient system, and security firms have a duty to maintain protection against older threats for just this kind of eventuality.”

Storm in a teacup? Looks like it.