A1200 boot up error.

[stefcep2]

My A1200 boots with the error: Program C:Version failed.  This requires a reboot and then i get red guru 80000003 or 800000B, and then when i reboot by clicking LMB the cycle repeats.  Version is run in the startup sequence after setpatch.  What does it do?

I have an Apollo 68040, and a flash card, OS3.1 kickstart.  Booting from floppy is ok.  I installed workbench on another partition, same problem.  Are there differences in OS3.1 between Commodore and Escom, because I am using Eyetch 3.1 Roms with Commodore OS3.1

[Flashlab]

What happens if you comment the version line out in your startup-sequence?

[stefcep2]

Well who would have thought it in this day and age?  My Workbench31 and Install floppies were infected with the "happynewyear96" virus!!  I managed to boot with no startup, install Virusz and found that all of my partititions, most of my commands in the C directory, scala etc were infected.  I hope my 3.1 disks are still usable after i disinfected them.

[pVC]

And what's the excuse for disks being not write protected?

Anyway HNY96 virus pops out every now and then, so it's good to check system files etc occasionally. And all games and demos you might found from net.

I had same problem when HNY96 was new and virus checkers didn't recognize it yet. Some program didn't read the infected files and that's how I concluded which was infected and which wasn't.. replaced them by hand.. there was some work with it.. and then week after the virus databases got updated

[stefcep2]

No excuse.  Hadn't used these disks for about 7 years, can't remember what I did that long ago that resulted in getting the virus. Decided to install a new flash card and thats when I got the infection.

Spoke too soon.  VirusZ detects the virus, removes (because the infected files become smaller and I can cold boot ok) but do warm boot and then the virus is back in the memory, re-scan with virusz shows the infected files are back. What to do???  I don't want to format, too much of a hassle to reinstall everything.

[pVC]

VirusZ should be able to remove it completely without losing files. Can you make bootable disk or temporary HD or something like that on system which isn't infected? And boot from it with cold reboot (Amiga turned off for 30s at least). In any case, turn off computer always if you're booted from infected media and after the cleaning too to be sure virus won't be in memory on next try.

[stefcep2]

I have 3 partitions on my flash drive.  I re-formatted one.  I will try to boot off floppy, and then install workbench on this partition. I will use workbench floppies that i will check in Winuae as being virus-free to install workbench on this new partition.  I will also install virusz on this partition and apply it to the infected partititon.  Then switch of for at least 30 seconds and boot from the previously-infected partition.  Should this work?

[pVC]

Yeah... and don't boot accidently from the infected partition until it's cleaned

[stefcep2]

The saga continues..

I disabled the infected partition from the early boot-up screen. I booted from floppy. I formatted a new partition, heck i even changed the file system on it from SFS to FFS.  I installed workbench.  I checked all the file sizes on the new installation and they do NOT have the extra 540 bytes that the virus installs.  So far so good.  I booted from this new partition, enabling he infected partitions but not opening them and.. the NEW partition has become infected.  Virusz finds the infected files on the new and old partition, says it removes them, but rebooting after waiting 30 sec and the virus is back on the supposedly clean partitions.  AAAAGH.  Does anyone PLEASE have any other suggestions

[zipper]

Put VirusZ and what it needs on the clean boot floppy and write protect it. Then run it on the HD partitions.

[stefcep2]

Thanks guys.  I finally got rid of the virus.

If anyone is interested:

The problem seemed to be that I my partitions were formated with smart filesystem.

It seems that Virsz, Virusexecutor and virus checker can detect and delete files infected with this virus but not remove the virus totally unless the partitions are formatted with FFS or other "native" file system.  Fortunately I had an empty partition which I formatted with FFS using hdtoolbox. I copied all of the files from the other infected partitions to this.  I then ran virusz on this partition, then reformatted the infected partitions with the FFS filesystem.  Ran virusz on them as well to make sure.  Cold reboot and virus was gone.  Just for good measure I used an aminet utility killhappy in the startup-sequence to prevent the virus from being loaded into memory (not sure if its need but I'm not game to try and find out).