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Thread ID: 70413	2006-07-02 09:12:00	Various Problems on an old PC	straka01 (310)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
468017	2006-07-04 02:44:00	As if we are surprised you don't work in security. If you did you'd know better. Every man and his dog has taught himself at home. A little knowledge is dangerous, because you think you know what you are talking about. What you have said is rubbish. For instance my own PC has a firewall, I have most services disabled but there are some things I use but don't wish them to access the interent. Like: MS Word MS Excel Acrobat Reader MS Help Hosting Center Nero PowerDVD Windows Explorer Among other components of Windows itself. Its been very effective an disallowing access. The software firewall is not my only firewall, nor is it my only defense. I always recommend home users run: An AV At least 2 antispywares A firewall other than XPs As a minimum. And I show them how to use them too, especially the firewall. A firewall incorrectly configured is useless but set up right it is part of their defenses. A little knowledge is very dangerous. Do you run as an administrator on your local PC? If you do, perhaps you should do your research on exactly what this entails. The only way to truly block these services from dialing out is to run a firewall independent of the PC (i.e. on your router or a separate 'hardware' firewall). Any programs running as an administrator user have total access to everything - no software on the local machine is safe from tampering.	TGoddard (7263)
468018	2006-07-04 04:03:00	A little knowledge is very dangerous. Do you run as an administrator on your local PC? If you do, perhaps you should do your research on exactly what this entails. The only way to truly block these services from dialing out is to run a firewall independent of the PC (i.e. on your router or a separate 'hardware' firewall). Any programs running as an administrator user have total access to everything - no software on the local machine is safe from tampering. Really? Funny, having bloced Excel from net access if I click one of the links in my suppliers spreadsheets it, oh dear, gives me an error saying can't access the net. Shock, horror!	pctek (84)
468019	2006-07-04 05:36:00	Because Excel isn't malicious it makes no attempt to bypass the firewall. A worm or trojan can bypass it with only minimal coding required. Just today I read this article: computerworld.co.nz Note the part: Cuebot-K can disable other software, shut off the Windows firewall, download new malicious programs, perform basic DDOS (distributed denial of service) attacks, scan local files and spawn a command prompt, Sophos says. Any firewall implemented in software can be disabled equally easily by any administrator-privileged program, usually simply by deleting files or changing registry keys. Come on, this is authentication and security 101. It isn't complicated - administrators can change anything. This is the last time I reiterate this in this thread. My initial post was simply a query into why the OP wanted to do this but it has become a separate discussion clogging the thread. I've stated my point and just ask that you think about the real value of the products the security industry is selling you in the future.	TGoddard (7263)
468020	2006-07-04 07:27:00	Thank you all for your input. I've been flat out recently but I'm hoping to get back to this PC tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes when I try your fixes. Thanks again.	straka01 (310)
468021	2006-07-04 09:17:00	apologies for the hijacked thread. software firewalls are not that easy to disable. sure they are plenty of AV and firewall killing malware around but av and firewalls do have defences against this. there are ways around firewalls fortunately they are not common and generally have fixes for that released not long after they have been found. 2ndly hardware firewalls cannot stop any process running on a remote pc, simple as that. they have done and never will. they can't even stop malicious traffic going through them, after all how does a remote hardware firewall tell what program generates the traffic and if its malicious or not. its up to PEOPLE to decide whats malicious or not. 3rd, a hardware firewall is nothing more than software firewall running on hardware. they can be hacked, exploited and bypassed just like pc's.	tweak'e (69)
468022	2006-07-04 11:02:00	I've started a new thread at forums.pcworld.co.nz for the firewall discussion and will answer there.	TGoddard (7263)
468023	2006-07-05 01:26:00	Thanks to all - I now have the OLD PC running very well. I replaced the floppy, the battery, turned off COM2 and loaded the Sound Card driver. And it's running sweetly. I have even installed the old HDD that died as a SLAVE and the BIOS sees it OK however I can't explore it at all. Question.... Is there any program or facility that I can download that will enable me to correct any corrupted FAT files etc just so I can get the data off the OLD HDD?	straka01 (310)
468024	2006-07-05 03:33:00	Terrific. Scandisk should fix FAT errors.	pctek (84)
468025	2006-07-05 06:31:00	But fixing the FAT doesn't necessarily help you get the data back. Scandisk won't restore directory entries. It will make the disk usable by Windows. Windows doesn't care about your data. :( Look for a data recovery utility before using Scandisk on it. It writes to the disk, which is the first NO NO NO NO thing in data recovery.	Graham L (2)
468026	2006-07-05 08:29:00	I tried Scandisk but it doesn't want to know me! Before I got the PC my friend took the PC to a PC repair shop and they seem to have left the OLD 4gB HDD locked up - don't know what they did. I've seen that there's quite a few HDD Repair & Recovery progarms on the internet and PC Mechanic is toted everywhere. I don't mind buying a program that will do the job - as long as it does 'do the job'. Does anyone know of reliable software that can crack this HDD so I can release it's data? There's a lot around but I don't want to buy one and then find out it doesn't do the job. After all, the program will be worth more than the PC probably - but if I can use it in future - then it's OK. Thanks to all of you for helping me.	straka01 (310)
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