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exocet_cm
Writing
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join:2003-03-23
Brooklyn, NY

exocet_cm

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Microsoft Xenix?

Anybody heard of or used Microsoft Xenix? »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix

Two things. One, does anybody have a copy?
Two, anybody know how to use it? My partner, a computer forensic examiner, just got a Windows 7 box for examination but buried deep in the HDD is a tiny partition with Xenix loaded on it. I thought he was loosing his mind, it has been a very long week for both of us, but I walked over to his workstation and sure as hell his forensic toolkit flagged it as he was making an image of the HDD.
taldridg
join:2005-04-06
Metairie, LA

taldridg

Member

Microsoft licensed UNIX from AT&T in late '70s and called it Xenix. I think it was ATT UNIX v6 or 7. I had the PDP-11 port which, even if I still had all of that stuff, wouldn't do you any good. If you only need to mount the filesystem, I might still have an early SunOS and SPARC that 'MAY' help. We can take it offline

DC DSL
There's a reason I'm Command.
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join:2000-07-30
Washington, DC
Actiontec GT784WN

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I dabbled with it some back in the mid-1980s. My copies are long gone. Early versions ran on 640K 8088-based PCs; later ones supported the 286 in Protected Mode. I remember MS marketing material back in like 1988-89 saying it would support the 386; I think they dumped it on SCO not long after that announcement.

If you can track down a copy of Xenix (or whatever it became after SCO got it) you might be able to create a VPC in Windows and have a look-see. Also, Xenix was 16-bit, so it will only run on a 32-bit CPU. 32-bit Win7 is the last version to support 16-bit guest OSes. You are most likely SOL if you have 64-bit hardware.

Another possibility is it could be a utility or recovery partition that is being misidentified. Utility parts often identify as DOS (FAT); recovery often come up as "Unknown" or whatever the manufacturer did to discouraging people from mucking around with it.
Kearnstd
Space Elf
Premium Member
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ

Kearnstd

Premium Member

Win7 and Win8 both make a 100-300mb hidden partition I know that. And windows calls it a system partition.

exocet_cm
Writing
Premium Member
join:2003-03-23
Brooklyn, NY

exocet_cm

Premium Member

Thanks for the replies. We're familiar with the system partition created by Windows 7 and 8, and are aware of EISA partitions.

My partner dug into it some more. It was, in fact, an "old school" OS that was buried in the HDD. It wasn't Xenix but FTK did flag it as Xenix. Without going into details of his case, and to satisfy any curiosity, this suspect is very tech savvy and this person was storing sensitive information within this OS partition. He got all of it.

LazMan
Premium Member
join:2003-03-26
Beverly Hills, CA

LazMan to exocet_cm

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For future reference; should be possible to mount and access (read only) most SCO/Xenix file systems under Linux...

exocet_cm
Writing
Premium Member
join:2003-03-23
Brooklyn, NY

exocet_cm

Premium Member

said by LazMan:

For future reference; should be possible to mount and access (read only) most SCO/Xenix file systems under Linux...

Thanks. I'm not a Linux guru as much as I'd like to be.
Kearnstd
Space Elf
Premium Member
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ

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I will say pretty genius to hide data in a buried partition.

Though not smart enough to know the cops will scan the drive without booting into said drive.