Can BadBlocks on Diskettes be Viruses??

[CrystyB]

I was in a little argument with somebody and i was really annoyed since he insisted to make me believe some diskettes that appear to be filled w/ Bad Blocks are actually infected with a 'BB' computer virus. I initially didn't even consider that statement as being anything else but a joke, but he insisted. So i argued that no OS (even the dumb m$Win) is stupid enough to execute some random code that he should be copying, but he didn't believe me. And the most frustrating thing is that he gives no arguments sustaining his case...

So does anybody have any ideas one way or the other?

[Quailman]

'Bad Blocks' aren't really bad. They're just the victims of a misspent childhood. Blame it on their mothers. Several years of expensive therapy might help them to overcome their disfunctional behavior.

[This message has been edited by Quailman (edited 10-10-2002 12:41 PM).]

[CrystyB]

don't generalize - some of them might be really physically impaired blocks...

[VinnyQ]

He might be referring to Virus on the boot sector of the diskette.

See link: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/iss/cit/software/viruses/virinfo/types.html

"Boot Sector Infectors"

[This message has been edited by VinnyQ (edited 10-10-2002 04:54 PM).]

[Antrax]

"Bad Blocks" are marked by the OS as "unreadable" (it's a boolean flag), and are ignored by it henceforth in every operation. It is impossible to impersonate a virus as a bad sector (or rather, it would never be executed). An interesting advantage this has is that you can hide information on a drive by labelling the sectors with the information on them as "damaged" -- they would never be touched.
Antrax

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