Each year, the virus remained dormant until March 6, the birthday of Renaissance artist Michelangelo.
[citation needed] On March 6, if the PC is an AT or a PS/2, the virus overwrites the first one hundred sectors of the hard disk with nulls.
[citation needed] On hard disks, the virus moves the original master boot record to cylinder 0, head 0, sector 7.
Although the infected machines numbered only in the hundreds, the resulting publicity spiraled into "expert" claims, partially led by anti-virus company founder John McAfee,[2][3] of thousands or even millions of computers infected by Michelangelo.
Despite the scenario given above, in which an infected computer could evade detection for years, by 1997 no cases were being reported in the wild.