Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!chinet!mcdchg!ddsw1!ddsw1!point!wek
From: wek@point.UUCP (Bill Kuykendall)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Preventing Floppy Boots
Message-ID: <[1568.3]comp.ibmpc;1@point.UUCP>
Date: 17 Aug 89 03:00:03 GMT
References: <1989Aug15.183532.27998@ee.rochester.edu> <2411@hp-sdd.hp.com>
Lines: 17

>A friend of mine wants to write a program that would provide some
>small security by either preventing people from booting off a 
>floppy drive or by making the information on the hard-drive unusable
>if the system is booted off the floppy.

What your friend wants to do is a fair amount of work, but it can be done
and already has been by the makers of various security packages (Kinetic
Access II comes immediately to mind).

The trick is to have a dummy partition table installed with the real one
hidden elsewhere.  The bootstrap code on the hard drive is modified to find
the hidden table, and a device driver is used to password access.  Users
attempting to boot from a floppy will get an 'Invalid Drive' message if they
try to access c:.

Bill Kuykendall
...ddsw1!point!wek