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wiping hard drive with debug.exe?
Name: Rheaot Date: July 30, 2001 at 16:41:42 Pacific
Comment:
I am reformatting and reinstalling Win98. Someone suggested to me that prior to formatting, I should use debug.exe (which can be found on a Win98 boot disk) which can totally overwrite the hard drive with random data (to help wipe out anything that may survive a reformat, ie. certain viruses). Then to use fdisk to make a partition, format it, and reload Windows. I'm handy with fdisk and format. The only problem is, I can't seem to figure out the cryptic debug program. What command should I give debug to do something like this (totally overwriting the hard drive with random data). TIA
Here's a debug script that will remove absolutely anything from your drive. Type the following:
debug -F 200 L1000 0 -A CS:100 MOV AX,301 MOV BX,200 MOV CX,1 MOV DX,80 (80 for the main hard drive - hd 0, or 81 for the second hard drive - hd 1) INT 13 INT 20
I wouldn't say "don't bother with debug". A boot sector virus will not be removed by Fdisk or formatting.
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Response Number 4
Name: nick Date: July 30, 2001 at 18:31:06 Pacific
Reply:
I find it hard to believe that a virus (even a boot sector virus) could survive a repartitioning. Repartitioning removes the partition boot code and rewrites sector one (MBR & partition table).
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Response Number 5
Name: Dan Penny Date: July 30, 2001 at 19:45:43 Pacific
Reply:
Boot sector is sector 0 (zero).
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Response Number 6
Name: anony Date: July 31, 2001 at 20:39:34 Pacific
Reply:
fdisk /mbr from a clean floppy
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Response Number 7
Name: Manny Date: September 12, 2001 at 08:35:40 Pacific
Reply:
A boot sector virus will not be removed by Fdisk or formatting. A virus can lock a HD by damaging the volume label... then there's nothing you can do about it... debug is completly neccessary.
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