david young wrote:
>
> Can an HD be damaged beyound repair by a virus. If
> yes, what are the symptoms?

   No...the only class of viruses that damages hardware is the CIH
strain which can overwrite the Flash BIOS on the motherboard, rendering
it unable to boot or destroying all data on the hard drive. Several CIH
viruses lay low until a date-activated trigger (the 26th  day of April,
June, and August). For more info look at:
http://www.F-Secure.com/cih

  Hard drive viruses don't exist that can destroy or damage a drive.
Software yes, hardware no with the exception of CIH.

> A PC I put together (Cyrex 333- WD68M HD) has major  problems. It was working very well for about a year
> until I downloaded some MIDI software...this produced eratic behavior with error messages related to
> "Explorer".
> I reformated the HD, reinstalled win 95, but results were only slightly better...eventually the same type
> errors would crop up.


   Sounds like an intermittent hardware failure that causes Windows
fatal exception errors. A heat-damaged component like the CPU could be
the problem, or perhaps a faulty SIMM. Motherboard or power supply or
dead cooling fan could be the cause. Also as Mark said check for a
manufacturer's diagnostic file to check the particular brand of hard
drive.


Russell Smith
Edtech Consultant, Journalist
Region 14 ESC Abilene
http://camalott.com/~rssmith
mailto:[log in to unmask]

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