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From: feg@moss.ATT.COM (Forrest Gehrke,2C-119,7239,ATTBL)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: Password program. Where ?
Message-ID: <1990Oct31.125119.16988@cbnewsl.att.com>
Date: 31 Oct 90 12:51:19 GMT
References: <90299.144326JFS10@psuvm.psu.edu> <1990Oct30.180312.5734@ccu.umanitoba.ca> <1990Oct31.021421.7987@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu>
Sender: @cbnewsl.att.com
Reply-To: feg@moss.ATT.COM (Forrest Gehrke)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 33

In article <1990Oct31.021421.7987@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu> norlin@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu (Norman Lin) writes:
>lucas@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Brian Lucas) writes:
>
>>In article <90299.144326JFS10@psuvm.psu.edu> JFS10@psuvm.psu.edu (Jonathan Swaby) writes:
>>>I am in search of a password program for my hard drive. I don't want people
>>>to be able to boot with a floppy and gain access to the drive. I don't want
>>>a program that protect just individual, but one that asks for the password
>>>when the machine is powered on.
>>>
>
>>I doubt such a thing is possible with software.
>> 
>
>Just a thought...  if the machine in question is an AT or higher class
>machine, what about the following:  set the CMOS RAM so that it thinks the
>floppy drive isn't there.  Then it will boot from the hard drive, thus
>-- 

It is possible with software.  Try PCLOK11F, available on simtel20.
It absolutely locks out the hard drive unless given a password.
The machine may be booted with a floppy system disk, however the
Hard Disk will be inaccessible.  Any users of this program should
be advised to make a copy of the partition sector before loading
pclok11f because any chance write to the partition sector afterwards
will lock out the hard disk permanently unless FDISK is used.  This
takes the chance of ending up with a complete restore (if you
have one).  It is much easier simply to restore the saved copy
of the partition sector to recover from this chance write.

Of course, another reason for squirreling away an original copy
of the partition sector is if you forget your password (;-))

Forrest Gehrke feg@moss.att.com