How do you guys protect your HDs from bootblock viruses?

[Leandro Jardim]

So for instance, lets say I have an A500 with HD like that nice GVP ones that was "attached" to the side of the computer. Only an example... How do you guys would protect it from floppy disk bootblock viruses from writting on it, assuming the virus can write to HDs, too?

I never ran this risk, because my A500 never had a HD, and I lost it before my dad could buy one for me. But now, because I am using WinUAE, I was thinking about this, and the only DOS way to do this I know is disabling it on the Early Setup boards page.

I dont want to select another configuration because I want only one, I "hate" to organize configurations, and with the Quickstart ones I dont have every possible combination.

Thanks.

[Sandro]

Originally Posted by Leandro Jardim

So for instance, lets say I have a A1200 with HD like that nice GVP ones that was "attached" to the side of the computer. Only an example... How do you guys would protect it from floppy disk bootblock viruses from writting on it, assuming the virus can write to HDs, too?

I never ran this risk, because my A500 never had a HD. But now, because I am using WinUAE, I was thinking about this, and the only DOS way to do this I know is disabling it on the Early Setup boards page.

I dont want to select another configuration because I want only one, I "hate" to organize configurations, and with the Quickstart ones I dont have every possible combination.

Thanks.

Amiga virus do not damage hardisk' bootblock were designed in the floppy era
however some virus attack files on hardisk, the most aggressive one is sadam virus, but it can be eliminated easily running Viruz Z

[Toni Wilen]

Also even if bootblock virus gets written to HD (for some unknown reason), it won't be executed. Harddrives do not use floppy bootblock boot method.

[Leandro Jardim]

Originally Posted by Sandro

Amiga virus do not damage hardisk' bootblock were designed in the floppy era
however some virus attack files on hardisk, the most aggressive one is sadam virus, but it can be eliminated easily running Viruz Z

This issue I ran with UAE not so many time ago, unfortunately was very late when I found it, and a lot of files were infected.

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Also even if bootblock virus gets written to HD (for some unknown reason), it won't be executed. Harddrives do not use floppy bootblock boot method.

Eh eh, I did this discovery not so many time ago, when I did let VirusZ overwrite the hard disk MBR with a DOS bootblock, I though, "ah, if they are different, it will not allow this", but it did not work, and the beginning of the hardfile got damaged by the bootblock. Doh!

[fuzzylogic]

In fact some bootblock viruses can indeed damage a harddisk. Most of the older bb viruses are dirty written hooking the doio() vector of the exec.library. So if doio calls are made on a harddisk block 0 those viruses actually write themself onto block 0 and 1 (or more blocks) of the harddisk. If there is important information stored it is lost. Mr. Heiner Schneegold, author of the famous virus killer VT always mentioned in his doks that it is generally a good idea to have a backup of those blocks so in case it is possible to restore them.

Viruses like Lamer Exterminator are "better" programmed and check for trackdisk.device which is for floppy disks only.

But there is no known amiga bb virus which is able to spread itself or infect harddisks.