Re: your church’s Mac OS 9.1 and viruses.
Sorry your church’s computer HD died, but it didn’t get a virus or any other malware. Simply clicking on an email link in OS9 will not load anything executable. Those have to be downloaded and then executed from the finder.
Secondly, there were no OS9 or earlier viruses that did the damage you describe. What happened was the hard drive died. While it may still be spinning, the head is no longer capable of reading the platters. That’s why you got zeros in the boot sector. It is likely to be ten years old. It’s not surprising on that old a machine.
Finally, that computer has no relationship to modern OSX Macs.
What you said is what I would like to believe, but I was able to get into the HD and scan through it — the boot block structure was readable but the content was zeros, and the PhotoShop files were readable — so the head had not died.
I have received email warnings about the “Postcard” trojan that does this to PC’s — if you click on the link, it downloads and executes. I thought Macs were immune, but now I think that trojan or a similar one has been modified.