Virus on Write protected Diskette?

[Dinosaur]

I run a multiple OS system. Mainly for sentimental reasons, one OS I run now & then is DOS 6.22.

In order to fix a problem, I booted from a DOS 6.22 diskette. The Virus checker in by BIOS accused the diskette of having a boot sector virus.

As far as I know, that diskette has always been write protected.

Is it possible for a virus to get onto a write protected Diskette?

Is it possible that an ancient DOS Boot sector looks so strange to modern virus scanners that it is misdiagnosed as having a boot sector virus?

To be safe rather than sorry, I did not boot from that diskette. Instead I reinstalled DOS by merely refomatting the hard disk and copying files from some backup diskettes.

[mjc]

If it is old enough, it could have had a bootsector virus from when it was made.....especially if the scanner used when it was made was out of date, or if it was the built-in one theat M$ shipped then (MSAV). I had it miss Michelangelo (a blast from the past....)

[Sylvander]

I seem to remember reading that BIOS virus checking is a bit simplistic and tends to accuse ANY program in operation as being a virus in action.

Check it with something a bit more sophisticated, like AVG.