Re: ATM 386 Notebook Virus Alert "Empire Monkey.b" virus

["Sam Michael" <samm@idcomm.com>]

My apologies for not verifying the system's to be virus free.

Unfortunately, even more of the machines went out with the viri.

The next batch will be cleaned up.

Sam.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Wayne Topa" <wtopa@dmcom.net>
To: <atm@shore.net>
Sent: Friday, April 14, 2000 7:36 AM
Subject: Re: ATM 386 Notebook Virus Alert "Empire Monkey.b" virus


>
>
> Subject: ATM 386 Notebook Virus Alert "Empire Monkey.b" virus
> Date: Thu, Apr 13, 2000 at 07:43:22PM -0700
>
> In reply to:Del Stanton
>
> Quoting Del Stanton(sd20@earthlink.net):
> Del>
> Del> ATM 386 Notebook Virus Alert
> Del>
> Del> I recently received two of the 386 notebook computers that Sam
Michael
> Del> has made available to the ATM community.  They arrived well packed
and
> Del> in excellent condition.  As was to be expected the batteries were
quite
> Del> worn out: one will run the machine for perhaps 20 minutes, the other
is
> Del> quite dead.  But they will be most serviceable.  One will be used to
> Del> control a small tabletop computer-controlled milling machine.
> Del>
> Del> I have been writing BASIC programs using the qbasic.exe interpreter
and
> Del> today I copied some of these to a floppy, to transfer them to my
desktop
> Del>
> Del> computer to print them out.  To my consternation my McAfee virus
> Del> detection program found the boot record of the floppy to be infected
> Del> with "Empire Monkey.b" virus.  McAfee was able to clear the disk of
the
> Del> virus.
> Del> I did a full reformat on another 3.5" floppy with my other desktop
> Del> computer (w/o
> Del> McAfee installed) and checked that disk on this computer (w/ McAfee)
and
> Del>
> Del> it came up clean, so apparently the one laptops are the source of
> Del> infection.
> Del> No other disks have been used with them.  Just now I reformatted two
> Del> disks
> Del> on the two laptops and one produced a clean disk, the other disk had
the
> Del> above
> Del> boot sector virus.
> Del>
> Del> I do not have Windows installed on the laptops (though I do have a
set
> Del> of Windows 3.1 installation 3.5" floppies) - what should I do to
cleanse
> Del>
> Del> the laptops?
>
> Del
>
>   I run Linux so haven't used Microsoft for a few years.  I do recall
>   that to clean the Master Boot Record (MBR) you did 'fdisk /MBR'.
>   That will wipe out the MBR and you then must reload the operating
>   system.
>
>   When I get my boxes I will do that and then a full format of the HD.
>   Someone mentioned that formating will not remove the Virus.  I
>   believe that is because the formating does 'not' format the MBR.
>
>   Clear Skies
>
>    Wayne
>    N 42 32.776
>    W 74 41.201
>
> --
> Every program has at least one bug and can be shortened by at least one
> instruction -- from which, by induction, one can deduce that every
> program can be reduced to one instruction which doesn't work.
> _______________________________________________________
>