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From: hcj@lzaz.ATT.COM (HC Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Corrupting DOS partition
Summary: yes
Message-ID: <814@lzaz.ATT.COM>
Date: 9 Oct 89 18:06:09 GMT
References: <5033@ogccse.ogc.edu>
Organization: AT&T ISL Lincroft NJ USA
Lines: 21

In article <5033@ogccse.ogc.edu>, lyle@ogccse.ogc.edu (Lyle Cool) writes:
> Last night I was making several boot disks with various hard disk drivers
> when I typed the following line:
> 	build bootblok kernel mm fs init fsck /dev/hd0   instead of
> 	build bootblok kernel mm fs init fsck /dev/fd0
> 
> This one-letter-mistake basically trashed my hard disk, DOS partition and all.
> 
> It raises this issue: should Minix allow a fumble-fingered programmer
> to corrupt another partition on the disk?

This is how Minix most closely mimicks UNIX(r).  Any screw up as ROOT will
destroy the system.

Try mkfs on the root image on disk.  Very destructive.


Howard C. Johnson
ATT Bell Labs
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hcj@lzaz.att.com