Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!umb!ileaf!io!carlos
From: carlos@io.UUCP (Carlos Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Is there a new virus?
Message-ID: <522@io.UUCP>
Date: 24 Dec 87 20:35:39 GMT
Reply-To: carlos (Carlos Smith)
Distribution: na
Organization: Interleaf, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 22


At a recent meeting of the BCS Amiga users group, a friend described being
victimized by what he is sure is a new virus - but this one kills disks.

The general symptoms he described were getting read/write errors on his disks,
(As I recall, surface errors around track 40 or 41), followed by errors in
validation of his disks, requesting a visit to the disk doctor. He is sure this
was a virus because it started after he got a new batch of PD disks, and to
eradicate it he had to go through all the motions described for wiping out the
well-known SCA virus. Furthermore, he has had no problems with his drives, 
he knows someone else on a local BBS that described identical symptoms, and
when he rebuilt his WB disk and reformatted all of his affected disks the
problem disappeared. It seemed to both of us that if it were a HW problem
it would not have disappeared so suddenly.

Is anyone aware of any viruses other than the SCA virus, especially any which
cause deliberate errors on disks?

-- 
			Carlos Smith
			uucp:...!harvard!umb!ileaf!carlos
			Bix:	carlosmith