Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!virtech!cpcahil
From: cpcahil@virtech.uucp (Conor P. Cahill)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: PC WatchDog problem
Keywords: watchdog security
Message-ID: <1989Nov9.141414.4166@virtech.uucp>
Date: 9 Nov 89 14:14:14 GMT
References: pc security <2085@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu>
Organization: Virtual Technologies Inc.
Lines: 30

In article <2085@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu>, eak@cunixd.cc.columbia.edu (Eric A Kades) writes:
> Norton Utilities, but if I boot from the floppy any attempt to access a
> drive with letters C, D, .. simply returns the message
> 	invalid drive specification.

The reason for the invalid drive specification is that watchdog marks the
partition as a non-dos partition and therefore dos programs will not access
the partition.

> Does anyone have any way I can boot from the floppy and get at my files
> on the hard disk?  I can write C or assembler programs if necessary,
> given an idea of what needs to be done.

This depends upon the watchdog configuration.  If the system is configured 
to encrypt the disk files, you will not be able to do anything with the
disk other than a low level format.

If the disk files are not encrypted, you could use the bios (not the dos 
calls, but the bios calls) to read the disk blocks searching for the autoexec
file.  Then you can modify the autoexec file so that it doesn't call the 
offending program.




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| Conor P. Cahill     uunet!virtech!cpcahil      	703-430-9247	!
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