R: Re: CAN GRUB DO WRITING OPERATIONS ON ATTACHED DRIVES ?

[address@hidden]

Ok ...

My question is:

CAN GRUB IMPLICITLY WRITE TO A DRIVE ATTACHED TO A COMPUTER ?

Implicitly means: without an explicit command from a user.
 
That is: in which way GRUB manages the ports of a usb interface (IDE and SATA) ?

There are two cases:  

1- The PC is turned off. A USB stick is attached to it. The PC is turned on. Fundamentally the GRUB should take a look at the MBR to see the port which to boot  from. So it should be only necessary a reading enable because there is no necessity to write in the usb interface registers (IDE and SATA).

2- CAN happen that the GRUB writes to the USB, IDE and SATA periferal drives during the normal user activity, for example when a USB stick is attached to a PC ?

I do this question because i've seen a SAMSUNG Solid State Disk that when attached to a PC stores the times it has been turned on (in a memory area different from the user data ones).

For this reason I'm wondering if is it possible to understand in which point of the source the GRUB manages the USB, IDE, and SATA interfaces.

I hope you can assist me in this question.

Obviously it no matter from where the usb, ide and sata drives come from  (windows or mac). For my analisys i attach them to a ubuntu system.

I hope you can assist me in this question.

Thanks in advance.

Vincenzo.

Forensic Consultant
Tribunale di Lecce

Studio: Strada di Garibaldi - Contrada Paradisi
73010 Lequile (LE)

cell: 339.7968555
skype: vincenzo.di_salvo


> ----Messaggio originale----
> Da: address@hidden
> Data: 17-lug-2017 10.44
> A: <address@hidden>
> Ogg: Re: CAN GRUB DO WRITING OPERATIONS ON ATTACHED DRIVES ?
>
> address@hidden schreef op 16-07-2017 23:37:
>
> > 1- After a PC restart (that is when the BIOS/UEFI has finished to 
> > inizialize hardware periferals and give the control to the GRUB) i'm 
> > interesting to know if GRUB implicitily (that is without an explicit 
> > command from a user) can write to a drive attached to a computer.
> > For example:
> > A- the PC is turn off
> > B- I put an usb stick in the usb port (no matter if usb is bootable or 
> > not); you can suppose usb stick is formatted NTFS
> > C- I turn on the PC
> > QUESTION: after the BIOS finish its procedure and gives the control to 
> > the GRUB, the GRUB can do, in some way that i ignore, writing 
> > operations into the USB drive attached to the usb port.
> > 
> > The same question is for IDE and SATA drives (for example internal 
> > attached Hard Disks different from the first containing the OS).
>
> I don't think you have specified your question very well.
>
> Is your question whether grub CAN do these things, or whether grub DOES 
> do these things?
>
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