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MS-DOS 3.3 Boot Sector Wanted

SteveH

Experienced Member
Joined
Apr 30, 2003
Messages
301
Location
Shropshire, ENGLAND
Hi,

Can anyone send me a copy of the MS-DOS 3.3 boot sector for 5.25" disk? My original set appears to be infected with the Spirit boot sector virus.

Cheers,
Steve
 
Have you tried booting with a known clean disk and then using fdisk /mbr? That should rewrite the first sector from scratch. (Assuming that your DOS disk is clean too ..)
 
I can get you a copy of Norton Antivirus Boot Disk for DOS, but it won't be until tomorrow. It has worked exceptionally great for me.

Is it BOOTSECT.DOS that has became corrupted or what?
 
Have you tried booting with a known clean disk and then using fdisk /mbr? That should rewrite the first sector from scratch. (Assuming that your DOS disk is clean too ..)
That's the problem, I think he's trying to remove a virus off his DOS disks. Could you just format the disk and write a DOS 3.3 image to it?
 
It's my master set of MS-DOS 3.3 diskettes that are infected. I've got a clean version of DOS 6.0, but really wanted to reload an older version of DOS on my Panasonic Portable (8088 ). I've just found that http://www.allbootdisks.com have 3.3, so will d/l and try that (after scanning it first ;)).
 
OK, I've now got a clean boot disk for MS-DOS 3.3. BUT... the boot sector appears to contains the Win 95 (Chicago) ID. Whilst this will do to get my Panasonic up and running under 3.3, I'd still like to reinstate my diskettes back to original state. Can anyone provide a disk image or at least a copy of the boot sector.

Cheers,
Steve
 
Situation sorted now... :blush:

This morning I found my working copy of MS-DOS 3.3 and that was not infected. I've made an extra copy and will later use that to fix my original diskettes.

I'm also going to make image copies of these diskettes as the files size and dates are smaller and earlier than those on allbootdisks.com. Plus the allbootdisks.com copy uses an NEC OEM IO.SYS where as my originals are "plain Jane" Microsoft.


Lessons learned (the hard way):
1. Write protect master diskettes and only use them to make working copies
2. Do virus check disks/programs you get from others and the internet
3. Don't start tinkering with vintage kit when it's late and your tired


Anyway, thanks for all your help + offers of help.

Cheers,
Steve
 
One of those little tidbits that seems to have been lost with time.

Windows 95, as part of it's volume-tracking, will re-write the boot sector of any disk being read or written, when accessed. Yes, you read that right--any disk written or read. An incredibly stupid and dangerous design.

Here's what Microsoft had to say about it and how to disable the behavior:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/150582

...and a particularly nasty case of this happening:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/148637
 
One of those little tidbits that seems to have been lost with time.

Windows 95, as part of it's volume-tracking, will re-write the boot sector of any disk being read or written, when accessed. Yes, you read that right--any disk written or read. An incredibly stupid and dangerous design.

I ran into that when I upgraded to Win95 while archiving original disks with winimage. A real PITA and lesson learned.
 
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