On 7/24/98 12:21 PM, Alex Winbow said:

>Suppose, for a moment, that some virus really *did* become
>"widespread". Although the University would probebly clean all the campus
>machines fairly quickly, it could take months or even longer to get it out
>of the dorms! Probebly even persistant reinfection! (Which I find even
>funnier than the virus itself :) 

The dorms are probably breeding grounds for more than just computer 
viruses. :-)

Maybe UT should encourage students to buy iMacs; they don't have flash 
ROMs. (And not too many viruses either.)

>> After the computer's date rolled over to 26 July, all disk partitioning
>> information was lost, leaving the system unbootable and the data
>> unrecoverable. No known tools are available to help save lost work, but
>> analysts are searching. 
>
>       Sure there are -- the virus only overwrites the partition table
>and MBR? So put the drives in a linux system, scan the raw device in a hex
>viewer looking for a begining FAT signature, and loopback mount the
>partition at the correct offset! Hey, anybody see any money to be made
>doing custom filesystem recovery? 

This warning looks like an ad for one of the data recovery companies. 
"CIH virus destroyed all your data? We can get anything back!" I'm 
tempted to say that saying that something is unrecoverable when in fact 
it's just unrecoverable *by any software made by Microsoft* does the user 
a disservice in encoraging the mindset that any problem is either 
unsolvable or requires some expert wizardry, but that might be preaching 
just a little too much, so I won't. :-)

Wesley Felter - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - no home page
Could I have been anyone other than me?

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