Monster Media 1996 #14

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Text File | 1996-01-31 | 31KB | 588 lines

╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ ║ ║ Welcome to QUESTION.TXT! Hopefully you'll find the answer to your question ║ ║ in this collection. ║ ║ ║ ║ o If you have a general question about data integrity, security, viruses, ║ ║ system sectors or similar things, the help index in Integrity Master may ║ ║ provide the answer (Hit F1 and then "I"). If that fails, read the manual ║ ║ (file I-M.DOC), especially part two on "Data Integrity and Viruses". ║ ║ ║ ║ o If you're having trouble using the menus in Integrity Master try the ║ ║ tutorial offered in SetupIM. ║ ║ ║ ║ o If all else fails, please contact us or the Advanced Support Group for ║ ║ assistance. See details in file SUPPORT.DOC (IMVIEW SUPPORT.DOC ║ ║ to read this file). ║ ║ ║ ╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ Q: Integrity Master said a file has an invalid time/date stamp or a file date is set into the future. What should I do? A: Some viruses mark files as infected by setting the date ahead 100 years or by setting the fields in time to stamp to 60 or 62. This can also be caused by buggy software and is occasionally done deliberately. If you see this on only an isolated file, you probably have nothing to worry about. If you see this on a group of files associated with the same program, you should contact the company that produced that program to check if that is normal behavior or a bug. If you have many files with this, read the next question: Q: IM reports invalid time and date stamps on many of my files. Do I have a virus? A: Maybe! If it's only executable files with the illegal values, you'll need to check further to make sure there's no unknown virus on the loose. If you have such a virus, IM should be detecting unexplained changes to executable programs. Try following the procedures outlined in the manual (or the I-M.DOC file) for determining if file changes are due to viruses. (Basically, what you do is to run a full check, execute a suspect program, cold boot, and run another full check.) There are some common causes for files to have illegal time and date stamps (such as 62 seconds): 1) There is reportedly a backup program ("Intelligent Backup") which marks files by setting the seconds field to an illegal value. 2) Some anti-virus products attempt to "immunize" your files by setting the seconds of time stamp of your programs to 62. This works only against a handful of viruses but some programs do this anyway. 3) Central Point's (PC Tools) Datamon will reportedly mark encrypted files by setting the seconds field to 62. Q: Integrity Master found some duplicate files (files starting with the same name but ending in .COM, .EXE or .BAT). Do I have a virus? A: You could have a companion virus. This is a virus which plants extra files to match your legitimate programs (See the manual for details on how this works.) If you see only isolated instances of such files, it is usually nothing to worry about. If you have any concern this may be virus, run IM regularly in full check mode and if you see additional such files reported, you probably have a virus. Such a virus can be removed by simply deleting the extra files. Q: I asked IM to scan a floppy but it froze. A: You probably have a diskette with an invalid boot sector (some viruses cause this). It's actually DOS that crashes when IM asks DOS to read the diskette. You can use the "Scan floppy Boot sectors" option on the "Check" "Disk for known viruses" submenu (or the /VB command line option) to have IM scan this boot sector for viruses. In this case, IM will bypass DOS and directly read the boot sector. Q: I start SetupIM and suddenly nothing happens or I see the display scroll and then get disorganized. The program seems to be stuck. A: Insert formatted media (e.g., diskettes) in all removable drives, run SetupIM, and try waiting about 10 seconds and hitting the ENTER key several times. You may be using a program which is trying to write a message to the screen while SetupIM is checking out your disk drives. You can safely ignore any garbage which appears on your screen. SetupIM will write a full report to file IMPROC.TXT. Be sure to check this file. The most common cause for this type of problem is using DRIVER.SYS to assign a duplicate drive letter to a floppy drive: You may have a statement like this in the \CONFIG.SYS file: DEVICE=DRIVER.SYS /D:0 /F:0 The numbers could be 0 as above or have some other value. DRIVER.SYS may try to write a message to the screen to ask you to insert a new disk and hit a key when SetupIM checks this drive. Deleting this line should solve the problem. Once you finish running SetupIM you may restore the line. IM will have know enough not to access the duplicate logical drive. Q: Sometimes IM comes up with different colors on the screen than before. What's going on? A: IM checks the DOS video mode indicator on your PC to see if you are in color or monochrome mode, as well as directly checking your video adapter. This allows you to use the DOS "MODE BW80" to indicate that a two-color display is present on a color adapter card. Some programs change this value to an incorrect value. If this happens to you, use the DOS mode command to set the video mode back to the correct state. For example, enter "MODE CO80" to restore normal color mode. You can also use the command line override (or SetupIM) so IM comes up using whatever colors you prefer. "IM /C" would force IM to use color mode. Q: I just tried to do a check or initialize on my hard disk. Integrity Master replied that this disk was not working. It IS working! What's wrong? ~~ A: File "DISKhelp.TXT" describes how to correct this problem. Read file DISKhelp.TXT using your favorite program, copy it to your printer ("COPY DISKHELP.TXT PRN") or enter the command: IMVIEW DISKHELP.TXT to display this file. Q: I just entered the command IMVIEW (or IMPRINT) and nothing happened. My PC just said "Bad command or file name". A: IMVIEW.COM and IMPRINT.BAT must be either in the current directory or in one of the directories in your DOS path. To put these in the path, enter the command PATH at the DOS prompt and you'll see a list of directories on your disk. You can copy IMVIEW.COM or IMPRINT.BAT into any of these directories. Q: I don't have my original DOS install diskettes to do a clean boot from. How do I install Integrity Master? A: It's only important to have a certified clean copy if a virus may already in control of your PC. In most cases you can safely install using your DOS files in place on your hard disk. Q: I use DOS 4.0. I get a message saying that SHARE needs to be loaded for large media, when I boot from diskette. Do I need to copy SHARE.EXE to my Integrity Master boot floppy? A: Integrity Master does not need SHARE. You may wish to copy it so other programs can use it. If so, just copy it to your diskette. DOS will automatically load it when you boot. Q: I just checked several disks but I can't find the report file. What happened? A: If you have the report file option turned on in automatic mode (check the OPTION menu), then the report file is written to the first disk that you check. If you later switch to check another disk, without turning off the report file, the reports will still go to the same file on the same disk. You can choose to have this file always written to the same disk by selecting this on the OPTION menu. If you specified a report file name "of your choice", and did not include a drive or directory specification as part of the file name, then it will be written to the current disk and directory when you start checking or initializing. Q: Other anti-virus products don't say I have to boot my PC before checking my files; why do I have to boot before checking with Integrity Master? A: Actually, if you thoroughly read your documentation you'll probably see that your product DOES suggest you boot from a diskette; we're just a bit more up front about this issue. If you're satisfied with the level of protection obtained from other products without booting, then you don't need to boot. IT IS OUR GOAL TO PROTECT AGAINST ALL VIRUSES NOT JUST KNOWN VIRUSES. The reason we ask you to boot from a write protected floppy before checking, is that this is the ONLY way to be sure that a virus is not already resident and in control of your PC. Integrity Master checks memory for resident viruses, so it is somewhat safe NOT to boot. If you choose to do this, be sure you always have the latest version of Integrity Master. Q: I want to write my reports to my printer. IM reports that my printer isn't working, but it is! What can I do? A: You have a printer which is not compatible with the standard IBM BIOS functions that IM uses. There's an easy way around this. Just use the OPTION menu to write the reports to a file called "PRN". This will allow DOS to route the print for you. Q: IM just detected a change to a program. Only this one program changed, I don't think it's a virus. What are some programs known to change themselves? A: There are too many programs to list them all here. Many programs will be changed when you run the install or option update program for that program. WordStar is a well known example. A new program is SETVER.EXE which is part of DOS 5. Whenever you run SETVER to set the DOS version for a program, SETVER stores this information by modifying its own code. This will result in IM reporting a change to SETVER.EXE every time you run the program. Changing certain options in MicroSoft Windows (R) will also change the program itself (WIN.COM). Q: IM keeps reporting that my boot sector has changed. It is NOT reporting a known virus. The boot sector seems to change every day. I don't think I've got a virus. What's going on? A: If your boot sector keeps changing repeatedly and you have an older HP or Zenith PC, you may have one of the models that changes its boot sector every time you boot. If you use a program like STACKER which establishes a virtual (not a real) disk, do not be concerned if the boot sector on the virtual (e.g., Stacker) disk keeps changing. This is normal behavior. As a matter of fact, changes to the boot sector of any disk which can not be booted from, generally do not represent a problem. If you have any doubt about whether it's a virus, save a few of your BOOT.SRL files (Run an Initialize boot sector after IM reports a change) and send these along with the other information called for in file SUPPORT.DOC to us. We'll check to see if a virus might be present in your boot sector. Q: I use an executable compression program (e.g., LZEXE or PKlite), am I in danger of the compressed files being infected? A: If a virus should infect ANY of your files, compressed or not, IM can detect this fact. So if a virus should infect a compressed executable file, IM will have no trouble detecting this. On the other hand if a known virus infects a program and then that program is compressed, IM may or may not recognize the virus in the compressed file. However if the virus should attempt to spread, IM will detect this. Q: IM just detected a virus in one of my system sectors, and says to reload the system sector. I've never run an "Initialize", so I don't have the sector reload file (.SRL). Help! What do I do? A: This reinforces an important point: DO AN INITIALIZE ON ALL YOUR DISKS SO THAT YOU CAN EASILY RECOVER ANY DAMAGE TO A SYSTEM SECTOR. Don't wait; DO IT NOW! If you lost your boot sector, you're in luck, otherwise you have some serious work ahead of you. BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING, POWER OFF AND BOOT FROM A WRITE PROTECTED DISKETTE CONTAINING A CLEAN COPY OF DOS THEN: o Use the "Floppy boot sector" on the "ReLoad" menu to clean floppy diskettes. o Partition sector viruses can be removed with the "PArtition boot code" option on the "ReLoad" menu. o For boot diskettes, you can manually reload the DOS boot sector by entering the command: "SYS C:" where "C" is the drive with the damaged boot sector. You must logged on to drive A: when you enter this command. Q: I have a system sector virus but when I boot from floppy, I can't access my hard disk. What do I do: A: You have a virus like Monkey or Urkel. If you can not access your hard disk after booting from floppy, follow these steps: 1) Boot from your infected hard drive. 2) Insert a diskette containing IM.EXE and IM.PRM in drive A. (A: in this example but B: is fine also.). 3) At the C: prompt type "A:IM /IP /B" (without the quotes). This will allow IM to create an uninfected copy of your partition sector in file PART.SRL in your root directory. 5) Copy PART.SRL to a floppy. (e.g. "COPY C:\PART.SRL A:") DO NOT COPY IT TO THE INTEGRITY MASTER OR THE BOOT DISKETTE. 6) Cold boot (as explained above) from the write-protected "DOS" diskette. 7) Insert the IM diskette and execute IM (do not boot from this diskette). 8) Insert the diskette containing the PART.SRL file into a drive (you may remove the diskette with IM.EXE to do this.) 9) Select the ReLoad menu and then select "Missing partition". Select "Physical hard disk" and enter number 0 (zero). This will remove the virus and you can now continue booting from your hard drive. 10) Please use IM to check all diskettes for infection. We recommend you copy the files off the diskettes and reformat or discard them. Q: When I first start IM, I see something red flash on my screen, but I can't make out what it says. A: When IM first starts, it looks for the parameter file (IM.PRM) which contains all your option settings. On some PCs this can be a slow process, so IM announces that it is: "Searching for and reading parameter file." On faster PCs, this message appears as barely a blur! Q: IM says I have a virus resident in memory, but I doubt this, since I have another anti-virus product which reports nothing. What's going on? A: Some anti-virus products execute as a resident program (TSR) to monitor your system and check for signs of known viruses. To check for these viruses, they use fragments of the same viruses that IM checks for. It's a standard practice to keep these fragments encrypted or stored in pieces, but some products don't follow this practice. You probably have such a product. To double check, remove any line in your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT file which executes this product(e.g., VWATCH or VSAFE). Cold boot your PC. Now run IM. If the other product was at fault, IM will now detect no virus. Q: I'm using STACKER on my PC and IM keeps reporting boot sector corruption on my stacker volume. What gives? A: STACKER closely simulates an actual DOS disk drive on its volume. It pretends to have an actual boot sector. This boot sector is not a real boot sector and may change from moment to moment. Viruses can not spread by infecting this boot sector and since it can change at any time, checking this boot sector is a waste of time. When you check a STACKER volume, just check the files and not the system sectors. Don't do a "Check Entire disk integrity" which includes the system sectors on the STACKER volumes. If you use the command line, use "/CD" rather than "/CE". Automatic handling of STACKER volumes will be available soon. Q: IM reports corruption of its own report file. Why? A: This happens in one circumstance. If you select a report file with a name of your own choice and then check the disk and directory containing that report file, IM will write to that file between the time that it checks it and the time that the file is closed. We recommend using auto-named report files or placing them on a disk different from the disk being checked to avoid this message. Q: I am getting errors when reading a disk I think is working OK. Why does IM report an error. A: See file DISKhelp.TXT Q: How do I get rid of that wait for a keypress at the end of processing. A: If you enter a command line parameter such as "/CR" or "/CD", and specify no pause either by using the option menu or with the "/N" or "/NE" parameter, IM will pause only briefly after it finishes checking. Q: How can I quickly remove boot sector viruses (such as Stoned or Michelangelo) from numerous diskettes? A: Use the "Reload floppy boot sector" option on the IM "ReLoad" menu. This will quickly replace the infected boot sector with a clean (and self-checking) boot sector. IMPORTANT NOTE: we advise copying all files from infected diskettes and reformatting the diskettes. Many common boot sector viruses corrupt the FAT/directory structure on the diskette. This can lead to future data loss if you do not reformat these diskettes. Q: How can I avoid having separate report files on each disk IM checks? A: Use the Options menu to set the auto-named report file to go to a specific disk of your choosing. All reports will then go to this disk, independent of the disk being checked. Q: I see: "Changes in directory xxxxxx:" but no changes appear on my screen. Why is this? A: If you have asked IM to exclude files or directories from checking, IM will remove their associated integrity data the next time you run a check. If you have asked IM not to tell you about excluded files or directories, it will still alert you that it is updating the integrity data for directories where something is being excluded. This notice appears only once when IM first removes the preexisting integrity data for the excluded files and directories. Q: Integrity Master reported a file as having a problem or being suspicious yet I didn't see why. Where's the explanation? A: You probably have your halt options set to halt only on serious problems or emergencies. In this situation the detail information is written only to your report file. Please read the report for the detail information on what was found wrong with the file. Q: I tried the "/L" option on my laptop but the screen is not very legible. A: The "/L" (LCD) option is intended for older CGA compatible laptops such as the Toshiba 1000. Newer laptops (especially VGA gray scale displays) should work fine with no special video override. If the display doesn't look right on a newer laptop try the "/M" rather than the "/L" command line switch. Q: When I run Integrity Master on an empty directory, it lists a large number of files as deleted (or sometimes added). These files don't exist there. A: You are using the DOS "APPEND" command. This makes files appear to be present in any directory which are actually in the appended directory. Type "APPEND" and hit ENTER to see if you are using it. When you installed DOS this command may have been placed in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. You almost certainly don't need it. If you don't want to get rid of it, just enter the command "APPEND ;" before you execute IM or include this in a .BAT file to execute IM. Q: I don't like the way IM displays dates or times. A: Execute SetupIM and select "Change Format for date or time" from the "Advanced option" menu. Q: I registered an earlier version of IM; can I download and use the current shareware (evaluation) version on my system? A: If you have registered or upgraded to version 2.31a or later, any shareware version will work as the registered version. (This is true for shareware versions released up to 12 months after your paid registration.) You must use the IM.PRM file that you created with registered version 2.31a or later. If you have lost this, get your IM diskette with the IM.DAT file--then run "SetupIM /U". This reads the IM.DAT from the diskette and updates the license information stored in your IM.PRM file. Q: IM keeps find the same changes every time it runs. It appears that it is not updating its integrity data. A: If you run IM from the command line with halt turned off (/N, /NE or /ND), it will stop updating your integrity data if it finds a damaged file. It does this because it assumes it is running unattended and can't ask you what to do about the damaged file. If you do want IM to update the integrity data just run from the menus or with a lower halt setting. IM will then ask you whether to update the integrity for the corrupted file. Check your report for disk corruption and run IM from the menus to let let it update t Q: IM reports that integrity data for a directory is invalid or a *.SRL file is damaged. What do I do? A: This could be due to a hardware problem but it's most likely due to doing another "first time" install with SetupIM. When you run SetupIM and specify a new install, it will look for an existing IM.PRM file. If it finds one, it will offer to "Keep the old check algorithms". If you do NOT select this option, IM will select different encryption and check algorithms. This means that when IM uses the new IM.PRM that is created by SetupIM, it will be unable to decrypt the old integrity data files. If this has happened to you, it's best to delete then new incompatible IM.PRM and locate the old IM.PRM files. If this is impossible or if something else such as a hardware problem damaged your integrity data, then you will need to use the "Initialize" menu to create new integrity data files. Q: IM says my disk does not have a boot sector or it fails while trying to read the boot sector. A: You may be running software such as the Artisoft Lantastic network server. This software intercepts all disk access and makes even local disks simulated (network) disks. These disks do not have a boot sector. To allow IM to run in this situation, shut down the server or start only your network redirector (without the server component). Alternately, ask IM to check only the files (use /CD rather than /CE) when this software is active. Q: Integrity Master is finding file corruption but it's not reporting a virus and I think my disk is OK. What could be wrong? A: Check the following items: If your disk uses disk compression (e.g., Stacker, DoubleSpace, DriveSpace, SuperStore, etc.) try disabling all other resident (TSRs and drivers) software including your disk cache. There may be a conflict causing the corruption. Turn off your disk cache and see if the problem goes away. It may be conflicting with another resident program or a hardware disk cache. Run Scandisk or similar program to read your entire disk and check for hardware errors. Boot with no config.sys or autoexec.bat file and see if the problem goes away. If not, then you are probably having hardware problems. If the problem does go away, then try adding back your files one line at a time. Q: I am using IM under Win95. When I start Win95, it present a window titled "Open with" and asks me what program to use to open one of IM's integrity data files (e.g., "ZZ##.IM"). I also see these files in different folders. How do I eliminate this nuisance? A: Integrity Master, if installed with the default options, will place integrity data files into all subdirectories including the Startup subdirectory. Unfortunately, Windows95 mistakes these files for application related files and will want to know what to do with them. There are several solutions to this: 1) Run SetupIM (not a new install) and select "Integrity data Options". Then select "Change attribute" and turn on the hidden attribute. THIS IS DONE AUTOMATICALLY FOR NEW INSTALLS OF IM. If you have done a new install and you still see the IM files, you may have changed the setting that hides "hidden" files. To correct this, start the Win95 "Explorer" and click on "View", then click on "Options..." and select the "hide" option. 2) Use the IM Options menu to exclude subdirectory "Startup". 3) You can remove the integrity data files from your hard disk and then use setupIM to place your integrity data files on a different device: 1) From the IM "CoMands" menu select "Uninstall". This removes the existing integrity data files. 2) Run SetupIM (not a new install) and select "Integrity data Options". Then change the location of the integrity data to "Separate floppy disks". You will then need a separate floppy diskette to hold the integrity data for each disk you check. 4) Start the Win95 explorer and then click on "View", then click on "Options...", and then click on "File types" and click on "New". You can now enter "Integrity data" as the file name and the extension you are using for integrity data files (e.g., "IM"). You do not need to assign any program--just leave this blank. This will prevent Win95 from asking you how to open the integrity data files. Q: I use DiskManager (or other third party hard disk partitioning software) to support my large hard drive. What special precautions should I take? A1: We suggest you upgrade to a controller that has a BIOS on the board that directly supports your hard drive. This will make you system much safer and more reliable than using this software. A2: Some products such as DiskManager DDO (Dynamic Drive Overlay), replace the real partition sector (AKA Master boot record) with their own code. If you boot from a plain DOS diskette, and can't access your hard drive you may have such software. Diskmanager and most similar programs can also be loaded from a DEVICE= statement in your CONFIG.SYS file. You will need such a statement to access your hard drive from a boot floppy. It is important to prepare such an emergency boot diskette. If you have the software installed in the partition sector (e.g., DDO), rather than with a DEVICE= statement, do NOT use IM to reload the partition sector but use the product diskette to reinstall the partition sector. These type of products create a non-standard partition sector that IM may not be able to safely reconstruct. Q: I want to use the "Partition boot code" option on the ReLoad menu to remove a virus (I haven't run an initialize for the parition sector yet so I have no saved copy to reload). How can I be sure this is safe? A: This option replaces the partition sector boot code (not the partition table) with a clean, self-checking boot program. This will work if your partition sector loads a standard operating system (Win 3.1x, WinNt, Win95, DOS, OS/2, etc.) but will NOT if a non-standard program is in the partition sector such as Diskmanager (see the prior question). To verify that it's safe to rewrite your partition sector, boot from a clean floppy (without a CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT file). If you can NOT access your hard disk normally (you don't see the files and directories you expect on your hard disk), then you should NOT use "Partition boot code" option to rewrite your boot sector. You either have the software described above or you have a virus like Monkey or Urkel that doesn't leave a valid partition table. You can follow the procedure described earlier in this file to remove viruses like Monkey or Urkel. Q: IM says: "Disk has invalid partition table!" What does this mean what do I do about it. A: The partition table is the table in the partition sector that describes how your disk organized. It determines how much space is allocated for each logical disk on your physical hard disk. This table is initially created using the FDISK program. Without this information, it is not safe to write to your hard disk. IM checks this for validity before offering to replace executable code in your partition sector. If the partition table is invalid, it means one of three things: 1) You have special software installed that replaces the standard partition sector with its own program. If this is the case, you can let IM reload the partition sector from its saved version but it's not safe to have IM replace just executable code; you must reinstall the original software to fix problems in the partition sector. 2) You have a virus such as Monkey or Urkel. In this case follow the procedure (earlier in this file) to remove the virus. 3) Your partition sector has been corrupted. You must either reload the sector by using the "Missing partition" option on the reLoad menu or use your partitioning software (e.g.,FDISK or Disk Manager) to recreate the partition sector.