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09-15-2002, 03:15 PM
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#1 |
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Member (7 bit)
Join Date: Jul 2001
Posts: 71
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WIN virus erradicated by linux install?
howdy
I had a harddrive with win98 that got a virus in boot sector that I couldn't get rid of ..........so for nothing better to do I installed SUse 6.2....................seems to be working o.k ..... is it possible that linux just doesn't see or care about the virus ......am I going to run into any problems ...any opinions? TIA |
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09-15-2002, 03:30 PM
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#2 |
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Member (9 bit)
Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 376
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Run a virus scanner...to be on the safe side anyway boot to a win98 bootdisk and do a fdisk /mbr
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09-16-2002, 11:45 AM
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#3 |
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Member (8 bit)
Join Date: Mar 2002
Posts: 229
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The antivirus folks at Symantec http://www.sarc.com or McAfee http://www.mcafee.com/anti-virus/default.asp should have a page to explain what these type of viruses are and how to get rid of them.
This really isn't a forum for removal of virus programs, and I am not qualified to recommend a course of action, but I'll give you my best guess opinion.... If you installed linux with the linux bootloader in the master boot record of this hard drive, and if it over wrote the virus you may have eliminated the pest. Problem is most of these things are written in machine language, many of these can go memory resident. I think, the best chance of removing one of these things, is to use an uninfected computer to download the utility software to do a 'low level format' of the drive, from the website of your hard drive manufacturer, and to use their recommendations to build a bootable disk with these utilities on it. Write protect the disk and follow their recommendations of using it on the infected computer. If this all works right, you should have a completely empty hard drive and can repartition and reload your OS. I think the big trick is to make sure this virus is not in memory, when you go to low level format. |
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09-17-2002, 09:43 AM
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#4 |
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Member (7 bit)
Join Date: Jul 2001
Posts: 71
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perhaps I wasn't clear
I wasn't asking how to get rid of virus .......done all those things mentioned ..and many more............couldn't get rid of it with anything............thought about manually editing boot sector of disk.....and then just decided to install Linux only on the disk .........(extra disk)......I'm under no illusion that the virus is gone....but linux installed fine and seems to be working (I am a novice so most problems are operator error).....haven't loaded lilo or loadlin .and am booting from cd right now..........guess I was just making a comment and see if anybody knew anything about it.......
other than that the disk was going to become a paperweight thanks anyway |
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09-18-2002, 09:29 AM
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#5 |
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Member (8 bit)
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: An ancient aircraft hangar.
Posts: 185
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If it was a boot sector virus then two things happened 1) your boot sector(s) was/were rewritten during the format and install process which then did away with whatever virus code was there and 2) you are now using an OS that won't execute the Windows-specific virii that are running loose.
This is not to say that Linux is not susceptible to a virus -- there are some that are surfacing now -- it's just a different environment. |
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09-19-2002, 10:12 AM
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#6 |
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Member (7 bit)
Join Date: Jul 2001
Posts: 71
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yeah jglen
that's pretty much how I see it , although I'm leaning towards # 2 ......anyway thanks for the input
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