virus & fat32 (cant format) 1

[ghayman73]

Has anyone heard of a virus that can corrupt the fat32. I have a small network only 6 pc with no server which i split up about a month ago since then four have had problems. Two have had corrupt fat32 (they will not let me format them when checking the integraty it fails)One of the others has lost c: completley but have not yet tried to format that one. The last one doesn't mention anything about fat32 (when I scandisk) but still will not let me format. Just wondering if this is all coincidence as three of them had access to the internet or is their a virus that can do this kind of damage.

Grant

 

[smah]

I don't specifically know of a virus that does this, but I suppose it's possible. I do know of a utility that might help you format these drives though. Try using this

http://downloads-zdnet.com.com/3000-2094-8838570.html?tag=lst-0-1

to wipe the drive. I use it quite often on my test pc (playing with different OS's).

 

[ghayman73]

thanks smah,
i,ll try that over the weekend.

Grant

 

[Alt255]

Any of the boot sector viruses have the potential for placing an HD in a state where common format utilities will fail to do their job. In fact, anything that writes to the boot sector (including Windows) can, conceivably, by purpose or accident, make a drive "unformatable". The key lies in the Boot Record Signature (the last two bytes of the boot record). If this field fails to contain the value 55AAh, neither FORMAT nor FDISK nor most third-party format applications can do their jobs properly.

The Boot Record Signature acts as a sort of EOF (End Of File) marker for the boot sector. FORMAT will fail because, finding no EOF, it assumes that the drive media has not been prepared for formatting. At this point, one might be tempted to restore the boot record by running the "undocumented" FDISK /MBR... which would be an unfortunated choice since, without a Boot Record Signature for reference, FDISK will overwrite the boot sector with zeros, destroying all drive partition information.

I advocate the use of disk editor utilities. I also recommend that all techs have at least the basic understanding of disk structures required for the proper use of said utilities. I'm not saying that everybody should be able to view a boot record in a hex editor and say, "Offset 15h contains F8h, therefore, this is not a floppy disk." I'm just saying that anybody licensed to drive a motorvehicle should be able to pop the hood and, at least, be able to point at the approximate location of the battery.

BTW: There are thousands of ways to corrupt FAT32, but only a few of them are capable of preventing a reformat.

Do no harm.​

 

[ghayman73]

thanks for the comments but i have now found the problem it was not a virus as first thought but a hard drive failure all 6 hdd where fujitsu and 5 have now gone (just waiting for the sixth to go) apparently there is a known problem with fujisu's hard drives.
thought id best let ppl know .

Grant

 

[Alt255]

Thank you for letting us know what you found out. It's important to have a sense of closure.

Do no harm.​