Zero access Rootkit

[Aruna Hewapathirane]

>
>
> Always make backups, and if you don't trust the machine you backed up,
> only ever restore data files, never executable code (which in the case
> of Microsoft products can be difficult given some of their data formats
> include executable code in them).
>

War Story: 1995 I had two Novell Servers in a production environment. One
Primary the second as a fail-safe, we took back-ups every night onto a zip
drive and a tape and to multiple CD's. We were running windows 3.1 and DOS
using Clipper as the programming language and database tool. One day
primary server failed, no warning no nothing just went POOF ! We switched
over to the back-up it seemed to work so went looking for the back-ups to
restore the primary server. Guess what ? The zip disks most had read errors
and no go, the tape back-up had fungus built up and I could actually see
patches of discolored sections and that was a no go. Finally out of sheer
desperation reached for the CD back-ups and there were a lot of CD's only
to find read errors again. So I was now getting ready to resign from my
position before they decided to fire me. I called a friend who was more
into hard ware than me and explained I had a situation can he please advice
?

He said forget the zip and tape as both will take time and may be beyond
salvage but get the CD's and follow instructions. Which I proceeded to do
and it worked thank you god ! You are never going to believe what I had to
do. I took that bunch of cd's into the nearest washroom, one by one I
washed them gently using water and a bar of soap. And he was very picky
that I wipe the CD's from the inner to the outer edge which I didnt know
then but do now why.

So moral of the story: Three separate back-ups that failed to work when I
needed them to. Soap and water will clean a CD that has unreadable sectors
most times if not physically scratched or damaged. Even though you may feel
your buddy is a certifiable lunatic who just went over the line into
borderline insanity by asking you to WASH the backup set of cd's always
trust those who have been there and done dat before and maybe even printed
da T-shirts !


*Aruna Hewapathirane*
Consultant/Trainer
Phone : 647-709-9269
Website: <http://goog_1768911931>Open Source
Solutions<http://sahanaya.net/aruna/>



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