Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Redesigns chkdsk For Windows 8, Improves NTFS Health Model
MojoKid writes "Microsoft can't do anything to magically make hard drives stop failing when parts go bad, but Redmond is rolling out a new NTFS health model for Windows 8 with a redesigned chkdsk tool for disk corruption detection and fixing. In past versions of the chkdsk and NTFS health model, the file system volume was either deemed healthy or not healthy. In Windows 8, Microsoft is changing things up. Rather than hours of downtime, Windows 8 splits the process into phases that include 'Detect Corruption,' 'Online Self-Healing,' 'Online Verification,' 'Online Identification & Logging,' and 'Precise & Rapid Correction.'"
* DONE!
(Yes, it's THAT simple vs. hosts-domain based threats which ARE THE MAJORITY OF THEM OUT THERE (because hosts-domain names are recyclable unlike IP addresses)... &, it works - you CAN'T be burned if you can't go into the malware kitchen!) No more malware, no disk corruption!
This concept & technique is VERY simple to understand, as far as how to install a custom HOSTS file, how to get data to populate it (& if need be? An Access import & "SELECT * DISTINCT FROM (tablename) ORDER BY ASC" type query & export can do the deduplication/normalization end even).
E.G.-> I've taught it to people who have NO CLUE in computing in fact, & they took to it like ducks to water - especially custom editing their custom HOSTS file with text editors once they understand what speeds them up (hardcodes) & secures them + how, by blocking out bogus sites/servers!
(And? Heck - They ought to like it & take to them fast! Especially considering a custom HOSTS file acts as a security layer AND more-or-less, an "online turbocharger" for speed too, for free! You already own one anyhow, with any OS that uses a BSD based IP stack (which IS most))...
P.S.=> Of course, your HOSTS file will need to have the domain/hosts name of the C&C servers, & that you have to obtain for this to work vs. threats like bogus servers &/or maliciously scripted sites. Here's some good sources for that above & beyond mvps.org (I noted them above):
http://hosts-file.net/?s=Download
http://www.malwaredomainlist.com/hostslist/hosts.txt
http://mirror1.malwaredomains.com/files/ (justdomains here)
http://pgl.yoyo.org/as/serverlist.php?hostformat=hosts&showintro=1&mimetype=plaintext
http://sysctl.org/cameleon/hosts
http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/
http://hostsfile.org/hosts.html
http://hostsfile.mine.nu/downloads/
https://zeustracker.abuse.ch/monitor.php?filter=lastupdated
https://spyeyetracker.abuse.ch/monitor.php?filter=lastupdated
http://www.malwareurl.com/
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/ (updater for Spybot "Search & Destroy" & it fortifies HOSTS files)
Those are some of my regular sources that are reputable & reliable for custom HOSTS file data populations vs. known threats online - I consolidate them here via programs I wrote that normalize/deduplicate repeated entries, sort/alphabetize the results, & change from larger + slower 127.0.0.1 (longer & loopback ops happen here) to the faster & smaller 0.0.0.0 (or even 0 on Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003): Enjoy!
I use RAID 1 for backups all the time. I shutdown the system, pull a drive, swap it out, and then restart the system. While system is up, replace second drive with a new drive and reimage over.
Total downtime: 5 minutes or so. Degraded performance for a few hours during rebuild.
Basically, if you use RAID 1 like tapes, where each HD is a tape, it can be an extremely economical and reliable way to backup data. You know your data's being backed up because you're actually running off that data. You can't have a situation where the tape drive fails to write data and then suddenly when you have a disaster, you find out that you have 6 months of blank tapes (I've had that happen).
At $100 per tape (actually HD+case), it's very cheap per 2TB of backups.
-=Lothsahn=-