[comp.virus] 640 K ?

WELFARE@ILNCRD.BITNET (A. SOLOMON EAGLSTEIN) (07/16/90)

I just ran Immune version 9.0 and was informed that there was only
639K insatead of 640K (PS/2 - 60). I then ran Scanres 1.4V61 and it
checked out ok at 640K ! Is anyone familiar with the probl Do I
have some mean and nasty bug ?
Thanx,
Sol Eaglstein
Director of Research
Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs
Jerusalem, Israel
FAX: (Israel) 2-731640
BITNET:WELFARE @ ILNCRD

RADAI1@HBUNOS.BITNET (Y. Radai) (07/18/90)

  Sol Eaglstein writes:
>I just ran Immune version 9.0 and was informed that there was only
>639K insatead of 640K (PS/2 - 60). I then ran Scanres 1.4V61 and it
>checked out ok at 640K ! Is anyone familiar with the probl Do I
>have some mean and nasty bug ?

  I don't know what you mean by "Scanres checked out ok at 640K", but
if you'd read the instructions which came with Immune, you'd find that
it says:

  "Note: On some machines (e.g. PS/2, HP Vectra), IMMUNE (and CHKDSK)
will report less memory than is nominally available.  For example, on a
PS/2 with 640K, IMMUNE will report only 639K even when no virus is
present.  This is due to an extended BIOS area.  In order to be certain
that the deficiency is not due to a virus, perform IMMUNE immediately
after booting from your original (write-protected) DOS diskette.  If
you find only 639K you know that the missing 1K is not due to a virus,
and that 639 is the parameter which should be supplied to IMMUNE."

  So the chances are good that you don't have some mean and nasty bug,
and the moral is: "If all else fails, try reading the instructions."

                                     Y. Radai
                                     Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem, Israel
                                     RADAI1@HBUNOS.BITNET
                                     RADAI@HUJIVMS.BITNET

eli@smectos.gang.umass.edu (Eli Brandt) (07/20/90)

WELFARE@ILNCRD.BITNET (A. SOLOMON EAGLSTEIN) writes:
>I just ran Immune version 9.0 and was informed that there was only
>639K insatead of 640K (PS/2 - 60). I then ran Scanres 1.4V61 and it
>checked out ok at 640K ! Is anyone familiar with the probl Do I
>have some mean and nasty bug ?

Maybe; it's certainly a technique that a virus could use.  However,
there's another possibility: on certain PS/2's, such as my 50, there
is a hardware error which causes the system clock to do bizarre
things.  The fix is a device driver with some peculiar name which, as
on your system, makes it look as if you have only 639K of DOS memory.
Check your config.sys for this device driver; I think it's called
dasddrvr.sys or something.