programs writing to the first 63 sectors

[da_test]

Hello,
I took a look at the first 63 sectors using dskprobe.
Except for sector 0, which contains the partition info,
the rest of the sectors contain zeroes apart from
sector 10, which contains 4 bytes (x'2896c417")
at offset x'190'.

I've got no idea what that is or who put it there.
Could be a hash, but who knows?
The only thing I have heard is that some programs may use
this area for things related to license enforcement -
I believe Turbotax from 2 years ago wrote into this area,
and they got hammered for it.

Is it harmful if it's done? How wide spread is it?
Dave

 

[Joep]

Hello,
I took a look at the first 63 sectors using dskprobe.
Except for sector 0, which contains the partition info,
the rest of the sectors contain zeroes apart from
sector 10, which contains 4 bytes (x'2896c417")
at offset x'190'.

It's put there by Former PowerQuest now Symantec products (PartitionMagic,
DriveImage).