Virus will kill both hard drives or only system drive ?
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A Dual HDD laptop is like a partioned HDD to the OS.
If the virus is coded to work on several partitions it will affect a second HDD.
If its not it won't.
However, most viruses won't just "kill your computer" - there is no gain in that, they'd rather create a botnet, spy on your bank card info etc. -
davepermen Notebook Nobel Laureate
and it won't "kill your harddrives" anyways. it might go onto each drive and try to delete the files. or try to format them all (but as that won't work for C:\ anyways, it most likely doesn't).
but yeah, viruses want to spread. they don't want to kill their host, they want to make it spread the virus to other hosts. and then, maybe, kill. -
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davepermen Notebook Nobel Laureate
yeah. never seen one before. it would be all in the news, not?
killing hw is nearly impossible, as hw has to be designed to survive any valid use of it. killing a harddrive, f.e., is about impossible. you can write data towards it how often you want. you may kill any data on is, rendering the os unusable, making you lose data. but i've yet to see a way to physically kill a hdd.
maybe by programming a firmware update? yeah, but then you'd have to write that for any disk existing.. but that would be a possible way.. you're right. -
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<10 character limit...> -
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But there must be a way... you can control it via the keyboard for example...
So if you can mimic keyboard input... or mouse input... -
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he should know more
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There is doubtless a minority of viruses out there that are meant to damage hardware (search for them), but ultimately what davepermen says is correct; for a parasite, destroying the host is counterproductive to the aims of the parasite, which is to spread virulently. The worst thing that a virus can do, which is worse than damaging hardware, is something that it does often: deleting data.
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^^More important is the question, how likely is it that you will come across such a hardware-killing virus?
With average computer usage (and I don't mean "NBR member-average"), it's even unlikely to be so unlucky.
It's like driving a car and preparing for a head-on collision with a meteor (or is it comet).
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davepermen Notebook Nobel Laureate
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davepermen Notebook Nobel Laureate
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davepermen Notebook Nobel Laureate
no. even overclocking or overvolting doesn't kill hw per se.
and it would, again, have to bypass UAC to get that far. -
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davepermen Notebook Nobel Laureate
there are some discussions about this. but the general census is, most likely not at all.
personally, i state a simple "maybe". -
How do virus infect then? UAC doesnt stop them. -
So, no, I can't assume that a BIOS is safe.
Then again, if I need a BIOS update, I will take a 'calculated risk' that it's safe (after waiting for a good week to read other folks experiences); I mean, I simply can't decode the BIOS to check it myself for any viri.
I've used a BIOS update once myself for a notebook, which wrecked my on-board NIC (NIC voltage too high->mobo replaced).
Meh, not a virus but lousy coding and testing...
If one takes a peek at hardware-level madness; going to '-1 ring' or '-2 ring', you can imagine that a LOT is possible.
But still, what are the chances?
So, it's not that you have to assume a lot, you simply take calculated risks. -
davepermen Notebook Nobel Laureate
most viruses don't want to attack the system, but just the user files. for spying and such.
and, a lot of other viruses use the most weak part of the system: the user.
if i would send you a InstallShootOsamaBinLadenTheGame.exe, you would happily install it, and thus, grant im admin rights by saying yes to the UAC dialog. if that setup is not a setup, but an actual virus, you're, at this moment, out of luck. -
You may notice that I did not include antivirus software in my list of security measures above. Compared to the items I did mention, antivirus software adds very little protection against a virus written by a capable cracker. This is because any cracker worth his/her salt wil of course test their virus against existing antivirus software, and make sure the virus goes undetected. In other words, if you do not make proper use of the security features your OS offers, and puts in place by default, then no antivirus, or any other anti-this-or-that software can save you from desaster... -
davepermen Notebook Nobel Laureate
^^ what he said.
oh, maybe lets add common sense to it... -
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davepermen Notebook Nobel Laureate
actually, you assume anything.
just playing with words
there is no economic use for a hw killing virus. viruses have a purpose. and that purpose normally means having an infected, but alive system. bugging the user, maybe, but most likely they try to stay silent, and spread themselves. -
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Everything goes thru BIOS. Attempting to stress a hardware component to kill it is impossible. An attempt to flash the bios would be bad but it's protected.
Anyways assume both drives are infected, shut off internet access, don't try to boot from any of these drives... pull out a bootable recovery disk and start cleaning up. -
davepermen Notebook Nobel Laureate
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davepermen Notebook Nobel Laureate
which won't. ever. happen. -
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Like 15 years ago there was a virus that wiped your BIOS ROM, rendering the computer unusable. I'd consider that hardware damage, even though with an EEPROM burner you could technically fix the problem.
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davepermen Notebook Nobel Laureate
and i never said it's impossible. just to make you feel good, UniqueQ..
i just said that it doesn't really exist. as it makes 0 sense. -
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davepermen Notebook Nobel Laureate
while tons of things are possible, they are not possible enough to even think about them. making people thinking about them raises fear, paranoya, and allows thus for strange missbehaviours. -
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This forum has a lot to offer, quality information, many active and 'seasoned' members, some of them (very) outspoken and many of them very helpfull.
Thus you'll see such responses more often.
When someone experiences a problem, there are many potential causes. Pinpointing the most likely ones, by narrowing/excluding unlikely causes is the first step.
As the topic was aimed at solving an issue and not debating the prevalence of mystic malware, the reactions were outspoken.
Your suggestion, while not impossible was very unlikely. Hence the reactions.
Again, don't take it too personal. -
davepermen Notebook Nobel Laureate
politics depend on that. economy does.
What happen when virus strike dual hdd computer ?
Discussion in 'Security and Anti-Virus Software' started by fantomasz, Jan 1, 2010.