Jaws Posted January 1, 2003 Share Posted January 1, 2003 I've installed a lot of mods lately and notice some problems with my hard disk. Most of the mods are from CM Mod Database. I've Norton antivirus 2002 with latest updates. I couldn't find any viruses, but after I removed the files the problems went away. I did the same thing again and again I had problems with my HD. Anyone else noticed this?? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RSColonel_131st Posted January 1, 2003 Share Posted January 1, 2003 Not possiple. Mods, as far as I know, are mainly .bmp files and .wav files, which can NOT carry a virus. Must be some other coicidence then... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Duquette Posted January 1, 2003 Share Posted January 1, 2003 Agreed...I don’t think anyone has been able to figure out a way to attach a virus to a BMP file (knock on wood). However in some of the older CMBO MOD packages there were small executable files that allowed players to switch between various vehicle schemes without having to rename a series of BMP’s. Dunno if this has been done with CMBB as I haven’t down-loaded any CMBB MODs yet. The stock BMPs provided by BTS seem pretty darned good to me so far. Anyway, a virus could easily be written into an executable file that is “supposed” to give players an easy way to switch back and forth between BMPs. I would look to these files as potential sources of problems in the realm of catching a virus. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Firefly Posted January 1, 2003 Share Posted January 1, 2003 As Jeff says the .exe file or the .bat file that comes with some mods could be a source of infection (and should always be checked), but I think we would have heard of such things on this board and I can't recall any mention of it in the two years I've been reading the board. That that your virus checker doesn't show any problems and deleting the files fixes the problem seems to suggest the problem is not a virus (viruses are harder to get rid of). It could be that the mods have been written to a bad spot on your hard drive. Have you tried running Scandisk or something similar to check your hard drive for errors? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PickleHead Posted January 1, 2003 Share Posted January 1, 2003 Actually,thats not quite correct,i was reading an article in Atomic, which states, a virus can be hidden in a form of bmp with encrypted or hidden file/exe in the BMP,why anyone would do this to a mod that would be distributed amongst us,and,sure to be found,is another question. you dont say what type of drive,is DMA enabled? are you running out of space,are the mods on a seperate drive to the game? etc etc. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tracer Posted January 1, 2003 Share Posted January 1, 2003 I always check for a virus if I get a mod from a new designer who hasn't been seen much at the data base. As for folks like me,noobie cannon, juju, andrew, tanks a lot,Gautrek, and a bunch more, we post there on a pretty regular basis,so we are trustworthy, it's the "unknowns" that I check, just to be sure, cause there are a lot of folks who download mods and that would be a prime place for a Crap Head to place a virus at. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pakfan Posted January 1, 2003 Share Posted January 1, 2003 Originally posted by PickleHead: Actually,thats not quite correct,i was reading an article in Atomic, which states, a virus can be hidden in a form of bmp with encrypted or hidden file/exe in the BMP,why anyone would do this to a mod that would be distributed amongst us,and,sure to be found,is another question. you dont say what type of drive,is DMA enabled? are you running out of space,are the mods on a seperate drive to the game? etc etc. You can hide anything in a bmp file (I think this is called steganography). But as long as you don't have a utility (or a trojan horse) to decode the exe from the bmp, nothing will happen... If the virus definition files are up to date, you'll probably find any kind of trojan on your system. If your AV software doesn't detect anything unusual, you might even see the trojan in your Windows process list. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaws Posted January 1, 2003 Author Share Posted January 1, 2003 Thanks for the info; I will try to use some other virus scanners. Maybe they can find something. First I thought my HD was corrupted but after several test it seem ok. :confused: 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Firefly Posted January 1, 2003 Share Posted January 1, 2003 Originally posted by tracer: I always check for a virus if I get a mod from a new designer who hasn't been seen much at the data base. As for folks like me,noobie cannon, juju, andrew, tanks a lot,Gautrek, and a bunch more, we post there on a pretty regular basis,so we are trustworthy, it's the "unknowns" that I check, just to be sure, cause there are a lot of folks who download mods and that would be a prime place for a Crap Head to place a virus at.Personally I check everything I download whether it's from a 'reputable' source or not, the person who adds a virus is not necessarily the person who created the file in the first place. It doesn't take long to scan a file for viruses and it's better to be safe than sorry. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tracer Posted January 1, 2003 Share Posted January 1, 2003 Well firefly, personally, I've know these modders we correspond all the time in e-mails,(specially when it comes fromm Gordon's CMMOS program)if they were ****heads and passed on viruses, I think I would have found out a long time ago, (me and a bunch of other modders) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laox Posted January 1, 2003 Share Posted January 1, 2003 you cannot infect your computer from BMP and WAV files. You didnt specify what "problems" you had with your HD. CMBB uses approx six billion files, installation or moving or re-writing these files can uncover disk problems you never knew you already had. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Firefly Posted January 1, 2003 Share Posted January 1, 2003 Originally posted by tracer: Well firefly, personally, I've know these modders we correspond all the time in e-mails,(specially when it comes fromm Gordon's CMMOS program)if they were ****heads and passed on viruses, I think I would have found out a long time ago, (me and a bunch of other modders)Tracer, I wasn't making accusations about you or any of the other guys, I'm just saying that checking anything you download from whatever source is good practice. I agree that if any mod maker were distributing viruses we'd have heard it about here. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaws Posted January 1, 2003 Author Share Posted January 1, 2003 Originally posted by Laox: you cannot infect your computer from BMP and WAV files. You didnt specify what "problems" you had with your HD. CMBB uses approx six billion files, installation or moving or re-writing these files can uncover disk problems you never knew you already had.I had old HD before I know the problems you can have with damaged clusters etc. I thought here we go again. But after I performed check disk, defrag and fault control the programs didn't notice any damaged clusters or blocks. Now I formatted the HD and will look if I can play without the problems I had. The fault I had was that HD keeps reading all the time and everything stops responding (Even when I stared the CPU with a clean boot). B.t.w. the disk I use s not the boot disk. But as I mention before as soon as I removed the BMP files the problems went away. [ January 01, 2003, 02:12 PM: Message edited by: Jaws ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tracer Posted January 1, 2003 Share Posted January 1, 2003 that's ok, no offense taken, it's just that the people who mod, do it because we like to, very few of us (if any) get paid for it, we do it cause we like to. But there is always some moron who will try to mess up a good thing by posting something infected with a virus,so if someone is new and only has posted a few mods I check the zips for a virus. But as for the old timers,(I mean people who were modding waaayyy back, when I first got CMBO, I know they are good people. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tracer Posted January 1, 2003 Share Posted January 1, 2003 Well, what size machine do you have?? if it's older, with a older graphics, (onboard, or oldere agp] it could be your machine can't handle the game, but this is a issue better addressed in the "Tech support forum" 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaws Posted January 1, 2003 Author Share Posted January 1, 2003 Originally posted by tracer: Well, what size machine do you have?? if it's older, with a older graphics, (onboard, or oldere agp] it could be your machine can't handle the game, but this is a issue better addressed in the "Tech support forum" Originally posted by tracer: that's ok, no offense taken, it's just that the people who mod, do it because we like to, very few of us (if any) get paid for it, we do it cause we like to. But there is always some moron who will try to mess up a good thing by posting something infected with a virus,so if someone is new and only has posted a few mods I check the zips for a virus. But as for the old timers,(I mean people who were modding waaayyy back, when I first got CMBO, I know they are good people.Thanks Tracer about that moron thing. I've got a P IV 2,8 with 1 gyg mem, TI4600 video card and about 100 gyg HD space. I'm not a complete moron and played CMBO since it was on internet. I did not much in the forum because I had 2 turns in Bosnia. Now I'm back and played a lot CMBO and CMBB since then. I've got CMBO complete full with mods and no problems with that. Only with CMBB the problems started. I am crazy about you and you fellow modders because it makes the game really beautiful. So I had no intent to frustrate you or your fellow modders. I wished I had the same capabilities to make mods. Making mods is an art and I respect that. I started this post because I noticed that a lot questions were answered in this forum by fellow players. So if it's not clear I will repeat this once.. I like mod's and want to encourage everybody to install them. My apologies to you and fellow modders about this post,but I was only trying to find help. [ January 01, 2003, 03:35 PM: Message edited by: Jaws ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tracer Posted January 1, 2003 Share Posted January 1, 2003 by "moron" I was referring to the ****heads that would try to post a mod with a virus in it and mess up a good thing. I don't think you are trying to post a mod with a virus,2nd, it always helps when you have a tech prob to list what type of system you have, because a lot of times, (and as I wrote earlier in the thread, this is a "tech support forum" issue}it helps to know what kind of system you have to diagnose a prob. Hope that helped 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaws Posted January 1, 2003 Author Share Posted January 1, 2003 Roger I will notice the problem again I will go to the tech forum. Topic closed. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Murray Posted January 2, 2003 Share Posted January 2, 2003 Simple rule to follow: CHECK EVERYTHING: no matter who it's from. I do. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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