Comments on: I can’t figure out what to write about so I’ll write about everything I can think of. https://dfarq.homeip.net/i-cant-figure-out-what-to-write-about-so-ill-write-about-everything-i-can-think-of-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=i-cant-figure-out-what-to-write-about-so-ill-write-about-everything-i-can-think-of-2 David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more Thu, 13 Dec 2001 08:20:48 +0000 hourly 1 By: Anonymous https://dfarq.homeip.net/i-cant-figure-out-what-to-write-about-so-ill-write-about-everything-i-can-think-of-2/#comment-2740 Thu, 13 Dec 2001 08:20:48 +0000 https://dfarq.homeip.net/?p=1114#comment-2740 Dave, I must admit that you give me too much credit in saying "remember" that NTFS and Linux are vulnerable to boot sector viruses. I hadn’t thought about that, but I suppose it makes sense. You have to be able to read the boot sector before you can load all the code that supports secure file systems, so it makes sense that the boot sector has to be easily readable. One would think that a secure OS would prevent writing to it once the OS was loaded, but I guess that’s not the case. I generally take the a: out of the boot seek in the bios, but I’ll have to check my boot sector protection settings.

My only recent virus encounter was getting an email from someone I didn’t know–probably a friend of a friend sort of thing so that I wound up in her address book. The mail had an executable attachment, so I decided to save it to a directory that I use to scan anything suspicious. McAfee warned me as I tried to save it that it had a virus, so I aborted and sent an email to the sender.

As for Drive Image, I used to use it, but the version that I had didn’t support NTFS. I’ve only recently changed careers to the IT field and wanted to have experience with what corporations use so I upgraded to a recent version of Ghost rather than a newer version of Drive Image.

My impression of both is that they work pretty well, but with a little "voodoo factor". Sometimes they don’t work and you just don’t know why. Probably not a bad idea to have both in your toolkit.

]]> By: Anonymous https://dfarq.homeip.net/i-cant-figure-out-what-to-write-about-so-ill-write-about-everything-i-can-think-of-2/#comment-2753 Wed, 12 Dec 2001 18:46:32 +0000 https://dfarq.homeip.net/?p=1114#comment-2753 I know Drive Image works. I don’t know anything specific about how it works, or any quirks about it, because I’ve only used it once or twice.

]]> By: Anonymous https://dfarq.homeip.net/i-cant-figure-out-what-to-write-about-so-ill-write-about-everything-i-can-think-of-2/#comment-2752 Wed, 12 Dec 2001 16:07:16 +0000 https://dfarq.homeip.net/?p=1114#comment-2752 What do you think about Disk Image by company that makes Partition Magic?

I have been using it lately and it seems wonderful! It copies partitions to a file (via a boot into DOS) that can be used to restore a hard drive partition or move partitions to another drive.

I also just noticed that you can view these partition files in Windows and extract individual files, which should come in very handy if that file becomes corrupted.

– Bruce

]]> By: Anonymous https://dfarq.homeip.net/i-cant-figure-out-what-to-write-about-so-ill-write-about-everything-i-can-think-of-2/#comment-2759 Wed, 12 Dec 2001 15:25:02 +0000 https://dfarq.homeip.net/?p=1114#comment-2759 Steve D., then it is something you’re likely to need at some point. You can’t trust Windows to keep anything safe.

Steve M., I learned something else about Ghost yesterday. I tried backing up my corrupted NTFS partition, and Ghost wouldn’t do it because it started to interpret it, then got confused. Now if I overwrote the first 512 bytes of the partition with garbage–Linux to the rescue again–it would treat it as a raw partition and do an (allegedly) bit-for-bit copy.

Remember though, NTFS is every bit as vulnerable to boot sector viruses as a DOS-based OS. Theoretically Linux could be as well. (In practice I find it less so, but someone else may not.) So, to keep your system truly safe, turn on your boot sector protection in your BIOS and pull the floppy drive out of the boot order.

]]> By: Anonymous https://dfarq.homeip.net/i-cant-figure-out-what-to-write-about-so-ill-write-about-everything-i-can-think-of-2/#comment-2758 Wed, 12 Dec 2001 07:53:31 +0000 https://dfarq.homeip.net/?p=1114#comment-2758 I should remove my foot from my mouth… Actually, SULFNBK.EXE is a Win9X/ME utility to restore long file names if they get "corrupted". NOT a vital file, if you trust Windows (ahem) to keep your long filenames safe. My memory failed me…

]]> By: Anonymous https://dfarq.homeip.net/i-cant-figure-out-what-to-write-about-so-ill-write-about-everything-i-can-think-of-2/#comment-2761 Wed, 12 Dec 2001 07:26:34 +0000 https://dfarq.homeip.net/?p=1114#comment-2761 As usual I have very little time, but I’ve enjoyed the last few days’ discussion of your data recovery efforts a lot. The whole story reminds me why I will continue to use a secure OS, like Windows 2000 with NTFS or Linux, and avoid being logged on with admin rights unless I need to be. Hopefully that, a router with a firewall, and up-to-date virus sigs for my antivirus software will help me avoid such problems.

As I read the story, I pictured myself in your shoes. Being less advanced in my skills than you, I immediately thought of ghosting the problematic drive, lest I screw up things irretrieveably. Reminds me that I need to Ghost some more of my data. The part about Ghost not laying down a bit by bit copy and being useful for data recovery was news to me. One never knows when such information may prove useful.

As for Gatermann’s link, I found it hilarious. The Onion does occasionally come up with something really funny. If you’re feeling bad about finding it funny, then I guess you’d better feel bad for me too.

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