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Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tekcrl!tekgvs!thorh
From: thorh@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Thor Hallen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer
Subject: Re: KILLER PROBLEM from HELL... *PLEASE* help!!
Summary: Breaking the PC-Lock protection
Message-ID: <7763@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM>
Date: 6 Jul 90 07:39:57 GMT
References: <90185.162114JCR108@psuvm.psu.edu> <2606@bruce.cs.monash.OZ.AU>
Followup-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Organization: Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, Or.
Lines: 39

In article <2606@bruce.cs.monash.OZ.AU>, alanf@bruce.cs.monash.OZ.AU (Alan Grant Finlay) writes:
> In article <90185.162114JCR108@psuvm.psu.edu>, JCR108@psuvm.psu.edu writes:

> > .......  I rebooted the system to try it out.  Since the 4dos286
> > file was not in the home directory, 4dos.com locked up the system and said
> > to reboot the system.  Normally getting out of this would be no problem,
> > however, I had installed the PC-Lock Protection System Version 1.2f from
> > Johnson Computer Systems a few months back.  This protection system will
> > not allow any access to the hard disk EXCEPT by booting from the hard disk.
> 
> I suggest you get in touch with Johnson Computer Systems.  If they do not have
> a solution then I suggest they change their name to Stuffed Computer Systems.

	They can be reached at:

	Johnson Computer Systems, Inc.
	20 Dinwiddie Place
	Newport News, VA 23602
	(804) 872-9583

> On the other hand it seems to me that if this protection system is purely
> software and you can boot from a floppy then it must be playing around with
> the battery backed up system parameter memory used on AT+ machines.

	I am fairly certain that they modify the hard disk to make it
inaccessable until their special driver is loaded by reference in the
config.sys file. It should be possible to restore the the hard disk to
a standard configuration with one of these hard disk recovery utilities:

	- Mace Utilities / Emergency Room
	- Norton Utilities Advanced / Norton Disk Doctor
	- PC Tools Version 6 / Diskfix

	The current version of PC-Lock is renamed PC-Vault and comes
with an option to make the hard disk accessable after booting from a 
floppy (You still need to know the password).

					Thor Hallen
					Tektronix, Inc.