Slashdot Mirror


Antisocial Hardware?

87C751 asks: "Over the weekend, I happened upon a deal: 10/100 PCI NICs for $1.99. I bought two and installed one in my Linux box. The box came up to POST, and the new NIC started looking for a DHCP server (which I thought was cute, if useless). Once that timed out, boot sequence continued to the message "NTLDR not found"! In an attempt to do a PXE net boot, the new NIC had -rewritten my boot sector!- Granted, a few minutes with a GRUB boot floppy set things right again, but why in the world is J. Random piece of hardware arrogant enough to frob my disc? Has anyone else been bitten by antisocial hardware?"

2 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. too bood it wasn't a whore by larry+bagina · · Score: 0, Troll

    $1.99 to frob your dick? Sign me up!

    --
    Do you even lift?

    These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

  2. Why do you bother spewing nonsense? by HotNeedleOfInquiry · · Score: 0, Troll
    "Obviously it wouldn't be impossible for a NIC to rewrite your boot sector"

    Obviously you didn't even bother to read a few posts before yours...

    The NIC can't run anything. There's no flash or EPROM on it. There's no way for it to force the CPU to execute code. I't can't do a damn thing but perform I/O instructions.

    Perhaps you're confusing a piece of hardware with driver software.

    --
    "Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...