Win 98se on FreeDos?

OK, I know I am not providing enough information. In ignorance I
repartitioned an harddrive with an infected version of FDISK. That's ok,
alright, because most of the important data was on different partitions. Will
FreeDos FDISK erase it? I intend to find out.
--
Keeping old old computers alive!


"George Lane" wrote:

> I guess I should fill you on the details. I have hackers. I was using a
> windows 2000 system which belongs to a customer and I was going to install
> windows 98se for them since many hardware vendors still support 98. Why not
> XP? I could obtain a cracked version of it and download a random number
> generator, but THAT IS WRONG!!! All they want is and inexepensive solutio,
> they don't have much money and their computer and all it's files is their
> bread.
> --
> Keeping old old computers alive!
>
>
> "George Lane" wrote:
>
> > Windows 9x uses an old DOS utility called FDISK. There are updated, non MS
> > versions of FDISK out there, namely FREEDOS. My question is... will windows
> > 98se run stablely on such a partitioned drive. And right now I'm going to try
> > it out and see. Comments are welcome and I will watch for what you say and
> > when I have problems with this project I will post them.
> >
> > --
> > Keeping old old computers alive!

You cannot safely use any known version of FDISK to work on one partition
only. Sometimes you will get away with it, but mostly you will lose data in
all partitions.

It's unlikely that FDISK was infected. More likely that it was the boot
sector of the disk you booted with. This can happen even if you know the
floppy was clean. Have you confirmed that the BIOS is set to boot from
floppy? A boot sector virus on the hard drive will reset the BIOS to boot
from hard drive but then check the floppy, so it looks like a boot from
floppy. But the virus is then running and is able to protect itself from
whatever you run from the floppy, such as FDISK and FORMAT. You have to
check the BIOS setting immediately before booting to the floppy.
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"George Lane" <GeorgeLane RemoveThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:6531B25E-6F33-43C0-9997-739344A08A9B@microsoft.com...
> OK, I know I am not providing enough information. In ignorance I
> repartitioned an harddrive with an infected version of FDISK. That's ok,
> alright, because most of the important data was on different partitions.
> Will
> FreeDos FDISK erase it? I intend to find out.
> --
> Keeping old old computers alive!
>
>
> "George Lane" wrote:
>
>> I guess I should fill you on the details. I have hackers. I was using a
>> windows 2000 system which belongs to a customer and I was going to
>> install
>> windows 98se for them since many hardware vendors still support 98. Why
>> not
>> XP? I could obtain a cracked version of it and download a random number
>> generator, but THAT IS WRONG!!! All they want is and inexepensive
>> solutio,
>> they don't have much money and their computer and all it's files is their
>> bread.
>> --
>> Keeping old old computers alive!
>>
>>
>> "George Lane" wrote:
>>
>> > Windows 9x uses an old DOS utility called FDISK. There are updated, non
>> > MS
>> > versions of FDISK out there, namely FREEDOS. My question is... will
>> > windows
>> > 98se run stablely on such a partitioned drive. And right now I'm going
>> > to try
>> > it out and see. Comments are welcome and I will watch for what you say
>> > and
>> > when I have problems with this project I will post them.
>> >
>> > --
>> > Keeping old old computers alive!

Jeff: your opinion is very definative but I beleive it is wrong. Please site
some knowlege base articles to support your theory. Yes I did confirm that
the hard drive was set to boot to floppy immediately before, yes I did hear
the floppy run, yes I was using anti-virus software and to prove my point I
succsefully ran freedos and it sucssefully repartitioned the hard drive
without any problem, then I ran the XP boot disk set and that worked and no,
I was was not connected to the network.
--
Keeping old old computers alive!


"Jeff Richards" wrote:

> You cannot safely use any known version of FDISK to work on one partition
> only. Sometimes you will get away with it, but mostly you will lose data in
> all partitions.
>
> It's unlikely that FDISK was infected. More likely that it was the boot
> sector of the disk you booted with. This can happen even if you know the
> floppy was clean. Have you confirmed that the BIOS is set to boot from
> floppy? A boot sector virus on the hard drive will reset the BIOS to boot
> from hard drive but then check the floppy, so it looks like a boot from
> floppy. But the virus is then running and is able to protect itself from
> whatever you run from the floppy, such as FDISK and FORMAT. You have to
> check the BIOS setting immediately before booting to the floppy.
> --
> Jeff Richards
> MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
> "George Lane" <GeorgeLane.RemoveThis@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:6531B25E-6F33-43C0-9997-739344A08A9B@microsoft.com...
> > OK, I know I am not providing enough information. In ignorance I
> > repartitioned an harddrive with an infected version of FDISK. That's ok,
> > alright, because most of the important data was on different partitions.
> > Will
> > FreeDos FDISK erase it? I intend to find out.
> > --
> > Keeping old old computers alive!
> >
> >
> > "George Lane" wrote:
> >
> >> I guess I should fill you on the details. I have hackers. I was using a
> >> windows 2000 system which belongs to a customer and I was going to
> >> install
> >> windows 98se for them since many hardware vendors still support 98. Why
> >> not
> >> XP? I could obtain a cracked version of it and download a random number
> >> generator, but THAT IS WRONG!!! All they want is and inexepensive
> >> solutio,
> >> they don't have much money and their computer and all it's files is their
> >> bread.
> >> --
> >> Keeping old old computers alive!
> >>
> >>
> >> "George Lane" wrote:
> >>
> >> > Windows 9x uses an old DOS utility called FDISK. There are updated, non
> >> > MS
> >> > versions of FDISK out there, namely FREEDOS. My question is... will
> >> > windows
> >> > 98se run stablely on such a partitioned drive. And right now I'm going
> >> > to try
> >> > it out and see. Comments are welcome and I will watch for what you say
> >> > and
> >> > when I have problems with this project I will post them.
> >> >
> >> > --
> >> > Keeping old old computers alive!
>
>
>

What theory? I know from experience that FDISK (any version) will overwrite
all partition data even if you think you are working on one partition only.
I know from experience that boot viruses are much more common than infected
COM files, and that they use mechanisms to preserve themselves when the
system is booted from a clean floppy. That's not theory.
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"George Lane" <GeorgeLane.TakeThisOut@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:832E1AE9-CE31-46E3-9BBA-C3C56FBB4C68@microsoft.com...
> Jeff: your opinion is very definative but I beleive it is wrong. Please
> site
> some knowlege base articles to support your theory. Yes I did confirm that
> the hard drive was set to boot to floppy immediately before, yes I did
> hear
> the floppy run, yes I was using anti-virus software and to prove my point
> I
> succsefully ran freedos and it sucssefully repartitioned the hard drive
> without any problem, then I ran the XP boot disk set and that worked and
> no,
> I was was not connected to the network.