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wiping hard drive with debug.exe?

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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



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Response Number 1
Name: bierkrug
Date: July 30, 2001 at 17:23:43 Pacific
Reply:

don't bother with debug
to make sure nothing is left on the hdd just take out the partition with fdisk
then repartition & format


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Response Number 2
Name: MMM
Date: July 30, 2001 at 17:26:54 Pacific
Reply:

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

-G


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Response Number 3
Name: MMM
Date: July 30, 2001 at 17:28:42 Pacific
Reply:

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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