Can virus damage cd-burner.

[Russell Griffiths]

Greetings.
Some just told me they had their computer repaired, and the burner had to
be replaced because a virus had damaged it.

I find this a bit hard to believe, but if it is true, they would have to be
one of the unluckiest computer owners ever.

What do you think?

Russell.

 

[Hercules Smackbottom]

On 4 Jan 2005 16:12:31 -0800, rg26ce1991@hotmail.com (Russell Griffiths) wrote:

Greetings.
Some just told me they had their computer repaired, and the burner had to
be replaced because a virus had damaged it.

I don't know about CD or DVD drives, but a normal floppy drive can indeed be

physically damaged by a software fault. If the CD has 80 tracks and the software
tells it to move to track 85 or something, the write head can crunch against a
mechanical stopper, damaging the mechanism.

Faulty software can also damage a CRT monitor by making the horizontal
or vertical sweep operate at the wrong frequency, or stop altogether. the
sweep circuits may then draw big currents because it's out of control.

 

[Gregory Toomey]

Russell Griffiths wrote:

Greetings.
Some just told me they had their computer repaired, and the burner had to
be replaced because a virus had damaged it.

I find this a bit hard to believe, but if it is true, they would have to
be one of the unluckiest computer owners ever.

What do you think?

Russell.

Its possible - remember the linux-version-from-hell
http://lwn.net/Articles/55537/

 

[Lord-Data]

*VERY* unlikely .. unless it was related to the LG drive thing mentioned by
Gregory .. The only way I can imagine would be to actually implement a dud
flash .. which technically is what actually happens to the LG drives .. but
a virus exploiting this would have to be *VERY* specifically targetted ..

I'd say its a lot more likely a dodgy sales person/repairer targetted it/its
owner..





"Russell Griffiths" <rg26ce1991@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:13cdb672.0501041612.7337965c@posting.google.com...

Greetings.
Some just told me they had their computer repaired, and the burner had to
be replaced because a virus had damaged it.

I find this a bit hard to believe, but if it is true, they would have to
be
one of the unluckiest computer owners ever.

What do you think?

Russell.

 

[Lord-Data]

"Hercules Smackbottom" <wanker@myrealbox.com> wrote in message
news:1103_1104893497@Loud_Belch...

On 4 Jan 2005 16:12:31 -0800, rg26ce1991@hotmail.com (Russell Griffiths)
wrote:
Greetings.
Some just told me they had their computer repaired, and the burner had to
be replaced because a virus had damaged it.

I don't know about CD or DVD drives, but a normal floppy drive can indeed
be
physically damaged by a software fault. If the CD has 80 tracks and the
software
tells it to move to track 85 or something, the write head can crunch
against a
mechanical stopper, damaging the mechanism.

Not possible on cd drives .. software doesnt have exact head positioning
control to the extent of overriding its firmware .. the firmware in teh
drive would prevent it from physically damageing itelf .. Floppy disks yes,
because they have no real firmware as such, but even so, on a windows
system, VERY unlikely to ever happen, windows low level driver interfaces
would prevent most things accessing even the floppy drive on a hardware
level, and thus adding a layer of protection ..

Faulty software can also damage a CRT monitor by making the horizontal
or vertical sweep operate at the wrong frequency, or stop altogether. the
sweep circuits may then draw big currents because it's out of control.

I think your talking about VERY old monitors .. even VGA doesnt provide a
method to control the actual monitor circuits, and most, if not all VGA
compliant monitors would have their own protection systems .. Try setting
your monitor to a higher than its capable refresh rate and see what happens
... cheap ones just shut down/sleep, more expensive/modern ones will bring up
a warning before going to sleep ..

 

[Spajky]

On 4 Jan 2005 16:12:31 -0800, rg26ce1991@hotmail.com (Russell
Griffiths) wrote:

Some just told me they had their computer repaired, and the burner had to
be replaced because a virus had damaged it.

I find this a bit hard to believe, but if it is true, they would have to be
one of the unluckiest computer owners ever.

What do you think?

hard to believe , but possible if was some custom made one trying to
reflash/damage the firmware ...
--
Regards & Happy New Year Everyone, SPAJKY ÂŽ
& visit my site @ http://www.spajky.vze.com
"Tualatin OC-ed / BX-Slot1 / inaudible setup!"
E-mail AntiSpam: remove ##