DOS Games Discussion

Anyone know of an incident concerning BIOS Flash ROM viruses?

(the kind that overwrite your BIOS with garbage thereby making your computer unbootable)

On my IBM Pentium 1, there is a jumper that write-protects the Flash ROM BIOS. I set that jumper for BIOS protection.

I have, but I can't remember it's name. They do exist though.

In most cases, the motherboard is fit for the trash can, right?

unless you have an EEPROM (I think that's what the BIOS chip is) writer, the system is garbage. You can contact the creator of the MB and see what they say, but if it's out of warranty, you might as well just buy a new MoBo.

-Richard-

Actually, you can pick up a new bios chip. But no one sells just a bios chip anyways.

And one more GOOD reason to enable the BIOS/CMOS protections on your mobo. It's enabled 2 or 3 ways:

1. The BIOS write-allow jumper in the mobo (if availible) should be set to NOT allow BIOS overwrite, unless you are about to update the BIOS. No virus can bypass this jumper and it's the single best protection against any evil that can befall your PC. (This is a different jumper from the clear CMOS jumper, usually placed near the CMOS battery)

2. In the BIOS/CMOS setup, the "BIOS update allowed" (if availible) should be NOT allowed before saving.

3. Once your OS has installed, enable the "antivirus" option in BIOS/CMOS. It's mainly for prevention of a harddrive boot sector overwrite but some are capible of catching other attacks.

Hope that saves someone a few torn hairs. And be sure your boot disks are "write protected" (OPEN the lock switch on the floppy) and virus free after you make them!!!! Any time a message comes up at boot asking to write to a locked boot floppy is a sure virus givaway. Mechanical safe guards are the most effective defenses every time.... if you use them