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From: turtle@darkside.com (Fred Waller)
Newsgroups: comp.virus
Subject: hardware
Message-ID: <0012.9101161910.AA06668@ubu.cert.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: 16 Jan 91 03:24:53 GMT
Sender: Virus Discussion List <VIRUS-L@LEHIIBM1>
Lines: 11
Approved: krvw@sei.cmu.edu

Fridirik Skulasson (frisk@hi.hi.is) writes in response to an inquiry:
> >Is there any way to prevent a virus from infecting a hard disk when
> >you cold boot with an infected diskette in drive a: ?
>
> Not without additional hardware I'm afraid.  Any program run from

That's true, but the "additional hardware" can be as simple as a very
small spst switch wired across wire No. 6 of the HD controller ribbon
cable.  It will effectively stop ANY and ALL disk writes without
interfering with any other computer processes. Not even a DOS error
message will be generated.