[comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc] Is this a virus???

public@cc.tut.fi (PD Software Group) (04/08/91)

In article <1991Apr7.033120.20083@ulowell.ulowell.edu> mschedlb@hawk.ulowell.edu (Martin J. Schedlbauer) writes:
>As I have been working over the past few days, Window's 3.0 WRITE and
>AmiPRO suddenly crashed. Other things have been working fine.
>
>On my 286-AT similar problems occured. I am using SuperPrint on both
>machines.

This *maybe* some kind of virus which infects files. Most viruses
won't work with Windows programs since they're structurally different
than normal DOS programs (I think). Usually when virus infects win.exe
file, windows will hang when executed.
>
>Does anyone have any comments? What virus detection/disinfection
>programs could I try?
>
Well, I recommed Scan V75 or F-Prot1.14 for you - they can detect most
PC viruses.


-- 
Tapio Keih{nen
Mesihein{nkatu 2 B 6
33340 Tampere
Finland

mcgee@cse.uta.edu (Robert M. McGee) (06/28/91)

I had a strange event occur with my pc the other day. I do not know if
it has anything to do with a virus, so I'm asking if anyone knows of a
virus with these characteristics.  Here's what happened:

I exited Procomm and got a error reading drive c: message.
Then I pressed the reset button and after all the ROM diagnostics had
completed I got a disk boot failure error.

The next thing I did was to boot off a floppy and run Nortons disk
test program which told me I had dozens of cluster read errors that
were unmarked and could be used or were already being used by files.

I turned the power off to the machine for about 20 sec. And it booted
normally when powered up.
I ran the Norton program again and got no errors.  I also ran a
(older version) virus check on all the drives and found nothing.

I haven't had any problems since.  Wierd.

mcgee@cse.uta.edu


-- 
_________________________________________________________________________
                                 | Mark McGee
                                 | News System Manager
                                 | The University of Texas at Arlington

mcafee@netcom.COM (McAfee Associates) (06/28/91)

In article <1991Jun28.042703.16945@cse.uta.edu> mcgee@cse.uta.edu (Robert M. McGee) writes:
>I had a strange event occur with my pc the other day. I do not know if
>it has anything to do with a virus, so I'm asking if anyone knows of a
>virus with these characteristics.  Here's what happened:
>
>I exited Procomm and got a error reading drive c: message.
>Then I pressed the reset button and after all the ROM diagnostics had
>completed I got a disk boot failure error.

Hmm... do you recall the exact message?  Was it something like "HDD Controller
Failure" , "Error Loading Operating System" , "Non-System Disk or Disk Error.
Replace and Strike a key..." or "Bad or Missing COMMAND.COM" ?  Most people
report one of those as a boot failure, and they all have different meanings.

>
>The next thing I did was to boot off a floppy and run Nortons disk
>test program which told me I had dozens of cluster read errors that
>were unmarked and could be used or were already being used by files.

Okay, the NUMBER ONE reason I get calls from people asking about lost
allocation units is disk-caching software.  There are a lot of disk
cache programs that buffer disk writes, that is, they allow the user to
make a bunch of little writes to disk, hold them in RAM until they
fill up a buffer, and then flush the buffer to disk (perform all the
small disk writes at once).  This speeds up disk I/O, but it you
reboot your machine or power down while there is still stuff in the
cache, then >POOF< it's gone.  This is particularly bad if there
was only a partially completed disk write in the cache, i.e., a file
was left open on the disk, or a file was saved to disk.

>
>I turned the power off to the machine for about 20 sec. And it booted
>normally when powered up.
>I ran the Norton program again and got no errors.  I also ran a
>(older version) virus check on all the drives and found nothing.
Have you tried cold booting off a DOS Boot Disk and checking with the
Norton Disk Test program?  If the disk errors appear then, it could be 
that you might have a "stealth" type virus that hides itself when loaded
in from the hard disk (unlikely, but a possibility).  Make sure that the
DOS Boot Disk you boot from has a w/p tab on it.  And you may wish to
get a newer virus checking program.  Fridrik Skulason has just recently
released a new version of F-PROT and Ross Greenburg recently released a
new version of t the VIREX-PC Demo Version (detects but doesn't remov.
Some other anti-viral companies have recently released new versions of
their software, too.

>
>I haven't had any problems since.  Wierd.
I agree.  Weird.

>
>mcgee@cse.uta.edu
>
>
>-- 
>_________________________________________________________________________
>                                 | Mark McGee
>                                 | News System Manager
>                                 | The University of Texas at Arlington


Aryeh Goretsky
McAfee Associates Technical Support
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