PC PLONKER - - - - Volume 1,Issue 1 - - - - March '95

MailBag


Mr. FICKS-IT - HE ALWAYS FUX IT.

Mr. Ficks-It,

Having read your advice to Mrs. Trout of Warwick, where you told her that she could speed up her mouse by increasing the size of SmartDrive (TM) to 4 Megabytes, I tried the same procedure to accelerate my modem. No improvement in performance was seen. In fact, my hard drive caught fire and burned down my house. What do you suggest?

Jonas Pringle, Herts.


Mr. Ficks-It replies:

No problem, Jonas! Simply install an additional 8 Mb of RAM in your PC and increase the size of SmartDrive (TM) to at least 12 Megabytes. This will undoubtedly help your modem to move your data along. *



Help!

Help! I’m on fire!

Gary, London


Mr. Ficks-It replies:

Don’t worry! Clearly, you need a more recent version of MSCDEX.EXE, perhaps supplied with SmartDrive (TM) and a bath full of water. *



Plonker,

I have been an avid reader of your column for some time and have found your advice to be most interesting and useful. However, I recently underwent a course of psychiatric treatment which happily left me completely normal! Consequently, I have come to regard you as a prize wanker. Why are you alive?

The Monarch, Jersey


Mr. Ficks-It replies:

I am sorry that you feel this way, your majesty. Have you tried SmartDrive (TM)? *



Mr. Ficks-It,

I am very sad. When I try to invoke SmartDrive on my new Kronikk Speck Lite, I get an ambiguous error message displayed on the screen (see enclosed photograph). Should I use a prettier version of SmartDrive (TM) to suit my beautiful new system?
I have 384 Mb of RAM installed in my buttocks.

Saddam Hussein, Iraq.


SmartDrive (TM) doesn’t work.

Mr. Ficks-It replies:

I assume that you have checked your monitor for a possible virus. If so, check again! There is nothing at all the matter with SmartDrive (TM); it couldn’t be better! Why not try soaking your monitor thoroughly in warm, soapy mud? *



PC Plonker,

Do you know where I can obtain a copy of ‘Fly Fishing’ by J.R. Hartley?

J.R. Hartley


Mr. Ficks-It replies:

No. It would certainly be better all-round if you were to purchase a PC of some sort so that you could use SmartDrive (TM). Let me know how get on. *



Mr. Ficks-It,

I believe that my hard disk has fallen prey to a nasty virus! Several of my programs will not run and all of my company’s database files have turned to jelly.
Fortunately, SmartDrive (TM) still works as well as ever, even though it has been replaced with a picture of what looks like a large insect (The Bug!? - Ed.) Please help.

Desperate, Maryport


Mr. Ficks-It replies:

Thank God that SmartDrive is still up and running, or else you would be in serious trouble! This sounds like a very crafty virus that has recently been catalogued by myself for Plonker. This sly fox is a variant of the recently cornered Intel Bug (see article in this issue - Ed.) I believe that it was mutated by some inferior disk caching program into the hideous monster that is now terrorising you and your family.
The most likely location of this infestation is under the Boot sector of your hard drive. The virus is quite smart and knows that, whilst most anti-virus packages will check the contents of the Boot sector itself for contamination, none of them bother to look at the disk under the sector. None, that is, until the marvellous Viru-Go (TM) function built into newer versions of the gorgeous SmartDrive (TM). The insectoid image that you see when you use SmartDrive (TM) is this fine function warning you of possible infection of the beneath-boot-sector region of your disk. See the diagram below.


The virus is clearly visible between the hard disk surface and the boot sector.

To remove this most foul of vermin, you must follow these necessary steps in strict order;

  1. Coax the virus into a state of false security by placing several juicy MS-DOS files in the root directory, near to the boot sector. Over the next few days, the virus will feed on the files with growing disregard for its own safety.
  2. Inspect the files regularly to determine which types of files have not been touched by the bug. These are the file types that your particular strain of virus is allergic to. Common types include .BAT files and files with an ‘M’ in the name.
  3. After a week or so, suddenly clear the root directory and fill it with files that the virus cannot stomach, as determined in section 2 above. The bug will be surrounded and unable to eat, and will be dead within hours!
  4. Once the virus has been purged, guard against future infection using SMARTDRV /GLUEBOOT to stick down the boot sector so that the mite can’t lift it up to crawl under it. *


* - You have a very serious hardware problem here. Anyway, you shouldn’t be doing it that way.

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