Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!ucdavis!csusac!csuchico.edu!ekrimen From: ekrimen@ecst.csuchico.edu (Ed Krimen) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: TOS 2.0 Keywords: TOS NEODESK DCDESKTOP ROMS Message-ID: <1990Nov15.001223.388@ecst.csuchico.edu> Date: 15 Nov 90 00:12:23 GMT References: <1238@digi.lonestar.org> <1990Nov06.213749.13906@ecst.csuchico.edu> Sender: news@ecst.csuchico.edu (USENET) Organization: California State University, Chico Lines: 26 mboen@nixdorf.de (Martin Boening) writes: - Well, you'd better NEVER power up with any disk in drive A. If the - boot sector is executable, it'll be executed. And that's with a ROM - OS! If the boot sector is a virus, you'll get hit by a virus. - That's all there is to a boot sector virus. Well, I ALWAYS power up with a disk in drive A. The boot sector on my disk is never executable. On the other hand, I accidentally booted a disk last night with a virus on it, and as soon as I accessed the disk, I got a skull on the left side of my screen. The skull is the result of a program in HOSPITAL.ARC which checks for viruses. If a virus is loaded into memory, the skull appears and locks up the machine. I couldn't do a hardware reset with the reset button, nor a coldboot with CTRL-ALT-RightSHIFT-DEL. Another trick to avoiding viruses is looking for the 'E' on the information line of NeoDesk 3. This will tell you if a disk has an executable boot sector on it. I've found quite a few viruses, mostly the Key/Signum virus, this way. -- Ed Krimen ............................................... ||| Video Production Major, California State University, Chico ||| INTERNET: ekrimen@ecst.csuchico.edu FREENET: al661 / | \ SysOp, Fuji BBS: 916-894-1261 FIDONET: 1:119/4.0