🚀 go-pugleaf

In <1992Oct15.153610.29280@news.ysu.edu> doug@cc.ysu.edu writes:

>  : Try to remove the hard disk *logically*: go SETUP and mark the hard
>  : disk as 'not installed' or the like. This will (should) prevent the
>  : possibly tampered master boot record from being read. (Still, you can
>  : try it with the disk taken out physically, this will guarantee that
>  : the boot record gets not read ;-)
>  
>  If we do this, then the machine will boot completely from a floppy disk.
>  But we can't access the hard drive to fix it.  If the HD is configured
>  in, then the machine will NOT complete a floppy-disk boot.

Oh yes, that's a Catch-22... but if you configure it out in the setup,
and the machine does boot from a floppy, you can still run some disk
utilities (maybe Speedstore or Norton? I don't know them exactly) on
the disk, if they don't care about the BIOS setup. (Some partitioning
uitilities - does anyone know better? - bypass the BIOS configuration
intentionally to enable the use of uncommon disks.) It should be
possible to at least write a clean master boot record to the disk,
enabling the machine to boot up with the disk configured in correctly.

>...  
>  The machines have tamper-resistant screws, and is a high-traffic student
>  lab, including student programming consultants, who would hopefully notice
>  if a machine is being opened by someone that shouldn't be.

Good for you; if someone had really replaced the BIOS you would not
be likely to get the machine working unless you caught him...

>...  
>  (2) We have observed students installing other software on the HD's -
>  mostly games that they didn't wish to carry around on floppy disk, but
that's what happens... :-(
>  also other commercial programs.  This makes a student the most likely
>  candidate for having installed this program, as well.

O.K., 'most likely' sounds much better. :-)


MfG,
        Olaf
-- 
    o     Olaf Titz - comp.sc.student - univ of karlsruhe - germany
 _ /<_    s_titz@iravcl.ira.uka.de - uknf@dkauni2.bitnet - praetorius@irc
(_)>(_)   +49-721-60439 - did i forget something?
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