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what could it b?
hi
Recently i installed RH7.2 with Win98se . After a couple of days my win98 got stuck while booting ( the blue strip at the bottom of the win98 logo stops after scrolling a little ) .Though i could still boot into Linux ,a day later it gave me kernel panic... I booted into win98 via startupdisk, removed the dual boot option and saw windows loading smoothly. I could c Linux partitions from windows vis explore2f s/w.
When i tried to install linux , the fdisk in linux said ' the partition table is not readable , going ahead( making partitions in linux ) will destroy all the data' . So i made fresh partitions using linux's fdisk tool, but saw free spaces of size <1 MB left between partitions and <5 MB at the end of the partitions (saw them in DiskDruid ), they were not present earlier. Then i installed both the OSs, but after a fortnight linux gave me a kernel panic and i lost it :( . Used the explore2fs for see the ' / ' ext3 partition. but it was not there, although '/boot' was present.
Plz help !!! what could it b? i checked for bad sectors but the HDD was fine..
Is there a [gloworange]virus in the MBR [/gloworange] which the Norton AV 2003 failed to detect ... How can i repair the partition table ..
Configuration:
PIII 450 , 128 MB RAM , 20 GB Seagate HDD .
Thnx
Schnyder
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It could be a MBR virus. You have to remember that your AV comes up AFTER the MBR loads. A bootdisk AV checker is good for that.
You could also have a damaged disk (yes, it's possible to still get a "lemon" every now and again). I'd suggest starting with the AV disk that you have created and updated on a regular basis (right?) and use that. Worse case, find a handy dos/win98 boot disk and do a fdisk /mbr. Certainly not a perfect way to deal with a potential virus but it might work. ;)
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thnx MsMittens but both the options u described were of no help..
One thing i forgot to tell was that two of my partitions ,both of size 4 GB have a problem . When i copy something in one of them , it gets replicated in the other . One was earlier used for linux and the other FAT32 . Seems to b a partition table problem...
:(
Schnyder
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Actually, this can happen when fdisk doesn't detect your Hard Disk geometry properly. The spaces padded around the partition has happened to me, but I've never lost a partition due to that. The one time that this did happen though, it happened on my friend's computer, and the problem was a damaged MBR. In your case, it's possibly a combination of the two things.
Cheers,
cgkanchi
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Will Partition Magic (v6) be of any help in repairing or making a fresh MBR on my HDD?
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It might... Try the fdisk /mbr method first, because that won't destroy the current partition information. If that doesn't work, try the Partition Magic method. However, if it is writing a fresh mbr + partition table, you will lose ALL data on your hard disk.
Cheers,
cgkanchi
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msmittens if you can tell me an uptodate AV that fits on a boot disk I would be very happy...if not well this sounds like symtomes of a bootsector virus and if that is the case AV's wont find it and we are in a bit of trouble.
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Many AV software allow you to create what's called a rescue disk or emergency boot disk. This disk has a small, non-gui AV software detector. I know McAfee has it and I believe Symantec has it. Not sure of others.
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Quote:
Originally posted here by MsMittens
Many AV software allow you to create what's called a rescue disk or emergency boot disk. This disk has a small, non-gui AV software detector. I know McAfee has it and I believe Symantec has it. Not sure of others.
The problem with both McAffe and Symantec is that the emergancey boot disk only works with the system that made the disk...If you didn't install a AV from day one you cannot be sure it dosn't have a boot sector virus...if it dose the boot disk you make is useless as it is infected, F-Prot for Dos use to be small enough to fit on a floppy but I don't think it will anymore I will have to check. For a while we where building f-prot dos diskes utilizing a ramdisk and compreshion but I think they even passed that size limit. In other words the bloat in AV files is going t oleave us all dangerously exposed to bootsector Viri soon :eek: . I am not sure I would even trust a day one system with an AV loaded back in 96 the shop I was at got a load of Quantum drives with Form.A on them.
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You might want to check here: http://www.bootdisk.com/utility.htm (thanks to DjM for the link in another thread).
This is a definate bookmarked site. :D
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Good old f-prot they shrank the file size back down to fit on a boot disk
but what do you do on NTFS?
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bballad,
You shouldn't need access to ntfs partitions in order to scan the mbr for virii.
however, if you want to scan an ntfs partition from a dos boot disk look at the following util.
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/fr.../NTFSDOS.shtml
The free version only allows read access, but, for scanning, maybe that would work. and let you know where the infected files are.
not completely sure about it though.
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Quote:
Originally posted here by IchNiSan
bballad,
You shouldn't need access to ntfs partitions in order to scan the mbr for virii.
however, if you want to scan an ntfs partition from a dos boot disk look at the following util.
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/fr.../NTFSDOS.shtml
The free version only allows read access, but, for scanning, maybe that would work. and let you know where the infected files are.
not completely sure about it though.
True most MBR are fat 12 or 16. I have used the NTFDOS boot disks before unfortunately they let you scan but not clean, Linux can help you here but NTFS support is experimental.
The worry here is with nonMBR stealth viri, a lot of them use to hide in bad sectors. And with the size of a modern HD whose going to miss a few hundred BYTES? Those are going to be a pain to clean real soon.,and again they can only be cleaned with a clean boot disk.....when is a virus creator going to combine the stealth techniques with a worm of some sort...that’s a scary thought.
I do remember a stealth virus coming in over a word macro at one time so it is possible (the macro ran a bit of assembler)
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you might use, the some good partitioning utility, if the fdisk doesnot work, and in this situation, it is better to format the system, repartition it again using fdisk or any other utility of your choice, then hinstall linux with out individual partition, on fat32, or if you are interested to install linux on seperate partion do that and have one good boot manager loke XOSL it will be fine.
XOSL boot manager, will allow you tohave any OS windows, linux etc.
