[NBLUG/talk] Looking for a bootable disk editor

Bruce Schadel schadel at sonic.net
Wed Oct 15 16:26:40 PDT 2008


  BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;
}Thanks, Frank. That's just what I was looking for.
 The CD is mounted a long distance away from the the CPU board and
the IDE cable doesn't reach. No power cable either, so the floppy
solution is probably easier.
 I have been experimenting with WDe, a nice GPL disk editor that runs
on DOS. It will save a sector to a file, but for some reason it won't
restore from a file to a sector for me. The author seems very
interested in getting to the bottom of it and I'm in no hurry so I'm
happy to work with him.
 Perhaps I'm being 'way too cautious, but I want to be able to undo
any changes I make (even restoring the virus) if necessary.
 I will definitely download the CD and floppy images.
 --Bruce-- 
 On Wed 15/10/08  3:04 PM , Scrappy Laptop scrappylaptop at yahoo.com
sent:
LDE, or Linux Disk Editor is on the SystemRescueCD.  
 LDE is a GPL'd lookalike to the old Norton Disk Editor in the same
way that Midnight Commander looks like Norton Commander.
 Lots of other neat stuff on the SystemRescueCD disk, too.
 Can you only boot from a floppy?  If so, it is possible to fit a
minimal Linux with LDE on a floppy.  Luckily someone else has done it
for you!
 http://members.plug.org.au/~steve/mbr.html
 It's a two-disk solution, the first has the minimal boot disk, the
second has lde (included in the hdd_fix.img).
 You'll need to write the two disk images to floppies, write back if
you need help.
 The disk images on that page make for a very useful toolkit...
 -Frank
 --- On Mon, 10/6/08, Bruce Schadel  wrote:
 From: Bruce Schadel 
 Subject: [NBLUG/talk] Looking for a bootable disk editor
 To: talk at nblug.org
 Date: Monday, October 6, 2008, 8:06 PM
	I'm not a sysadmin of any denomination and have no business on this
list 
 but I've been lurking ever since an installfest a few years ago.
 I work in a semiconductor fab and have engineering responsibility
for an 
 instrument with a built-in and not upgradeable, hardwarewise, PC 
 controller. Someone on the previous watch had managed to migrate
from 
 Windows 3.11 to Windows 98. I sent the instrument out for repair
about 6 
 months ago and it came back with 3.11 again. Some calibration
function 
 didn't work under '98. But, it now has the NYB boot-sector virus. By
 all 
 accounts, this beastie is pretty benign, seeking mainly to replicate
and 
 spread itself.  However, the application is crashing regularly and
it 
 seems the first thing to do is get rid of the virus.
 I did a web search and some sources suggest I just run FDISK /MBR to

 rewrite the master boot record. Another source says the virus/worm
will 
 have copied absolute sector 1 to sector 17. It's not clear whether
the 
 bug will have overwritten the partition table at the end of sector
1. If 
 it has, restoring the MBR only will render the PC unbootable.
 So, I'm looking for a bootable disk editor, preferably free, that
will 
 allow me to inspect sectors 1 and 17 and copy portions of one to the

 other if need be. I thought I'd find an open-source utility to do
that, 
 but no joy. I downloaded the trial version of Acronis Disk Director 
 Suite 10.0 which contains 'way more than I want but it appears that
the 
 disk editor component is read-only.
 Any ideas? I can boot from a floppy or CD.
 BTW, the guy  who gave me the virus left the company he was working
for 
 shortly afterward.
 Thanks,
 --Bruce--
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