> how does a virus earase the BIOS. how come the bios is so vernable.

        A few years ago it would not have been possible however today... the
problem is flash BIOSes. In the past a BIOS was contained in a chip that was
either permanent (could not be altered by any means or EPROM which could be
altered if you first erased the chip by exposing it to high levels of UV
light through the window on top). Some didn't have the window so although
they could be programmed electrically, without the window they could never
be erased. Then came EEPROM or the closely related flash memory. This type
can both be programmed and erased electrically, they only catch is some
chips needed a higher voltage to erase, ususally 12V. This is what the
"diable BIOS programming" jumper on a motherboard does, it removes the 12V.
The catch here is the latest chips no longer need the 12V to be programmed,
making the jumper pointless. When you upgrade your bios what you are really
doing is erasing the chips and then putting updated code into it. This virus
does the same, except whatever it does, the code that is left in the chip is
useless to the board, and the next time you reboot nothing happens.

> also, i've heard that there is a virus from pakistan that acually
> "overclock" the cd-drive and make it spin faster than its origonal speed
> causing the drive to burn. is this true. if it is. how can a virus (or a
> program) make the cd-drive spin faster.

        I haven't heard of this one, but I would say no, it is not possible. As a
general rule, software can never hurt hardware. There have been a few
exceptions to the rule, but they utilized certain weaknesses in design and
required a specific set of circumstances to occur. Please note, the wiping
of the bios is NOT hardware damage, the system has not been harmed from a
hardware point of view, it is the software that has been deleted or modified
which results in the hardware not knowing what to do with it self. TTYL

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