padgett%tccslr.dnet@uvs1.orl.mmc.com (Padgett Peterson) (03/09/91)
Recently I have talked to a number of people who have been on
the receiving end of viruses and other malicious activities who have
the idea that the one true solution is a low-level format of the fixed
disk involved. Loss of all data/programs is considered an acceptable
risk.
There also seem to be a number of management types who feel
that rather than invest in any protection software, if attacked, a
low-level format is acceptable to their disaster plan.
Just to help those of you who may think the same way, consider
that many current PCs (I think Compaq started it all) come with nice,
small, power-sipping IDE drives. Consider that these now provide the
size and speed of the best conventional drives at the cost of a bare
MFM (ST06) drive. This is now a selling point for many manufacturers
and a plus for power users who do not have to give up any high memory
(potential RAM for TSRs) to a disk controller.
Now consider that these drives arrive pre-formatted from the
manufacturer and many CANNOT be low-level formatted (the same goes for
the new 20 Mb 3 1/2 flopticals).
It is time that users like these realize that there are
alternatives (most of them have been discussed on Virus-L) and that
viral protection/removal/recovery does not have to include brute force
formatting, high or low level, rather the application of some
intelligence is appropriate.
Pleasant dreams,
Padgett