Jim Lawrence
accessd at shaw.ca
Sat Apr 30 21:11:33 CDT 2011
True, but Spinrite does not clear any data as you said and once the OS starts up again, if a piece of malware is/was 'hidden' in some position on the hard drive, it is just re-tagged as a bad track and the app carries on. There was an article on the whole process of these new super bugs but I can not even remember when and where I read it, but I will definitely post it if it appears up. Jim -----Original Message----- From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of John Bartow Sent: Saturday, April 30, 2011 11:21 AM To: 'Discussion of Hardware and Software issues' Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Not Sure Quite What I'm Dealing With Here - Update 2 Just an FYI: Spinrite doesn't "remove" anything, or maybe more appropriately, does its best not to remove anything (nothing is perfect ;-) It is strictly a surface analysis/repair tool. If there is a sector marked as bad that isn't, Spinrite will test the crap out of it and mark it good if it really is. Since Spinrite runs under its own OS and no longer runs within as OS, nothing can prevent it from doing so. -----Original Message----- Then there are some really deep bugs. Some malware can actually place itself on a hard drive and mark its position as a bad track so it can never be scanned or removed and all it needs is one of its' components to access it directly...not even spinwrite will remove it. You can try some daring tactics like making a file image of the computer on to a portable hard drive, doing a full re-format of the drive, installing a fresh copy of windows and restoring the file image. It has its risks but it will get most everything that is hidden in drive tracks and boot sectors. http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm _______________________________________________ dba-Tech mailing list dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com