Previously I’ve written about Kaspersky offering free Rescue Disk to clean virus without booting in to Windows. This is very useful when you have a computer that is unable to boot in to Windows caused by virus. All you need to do is to boot up the computer with Kaspersky Rescue Disk CD and it launch the latest Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 to scan your computer.
However, problem with Kaspersky Rescue Disk is it is not updated frequently, unlike the free Kaspersky AVP Tool which is updated few times a day. Kaspersky Rescue Disk was last updated on 11 Jun 2008. I’ve tried to figure out a solution on how to manually update the virus definition but it seemed to be different. The Rescue Disk virus definition file extension is .kvc and the official Kaspersky virus definition is in .avc. Even some of the XML filenames are not identical.
I am definitely not giving up on this but in the meantime, here is another Rescue CD alternative by Avira that can clean unremovable virus without booting into Windows. If you’ve read my research on which is the best Anti-Virus program, Avira AntiVir appears to be on top of the list after Kaspersky.
The Avira AntiVir Rescue System is a linux-based application that allows accessing computers that cannot be booted anymore. Thus it is possible to repair a damaged system, to rescue data or to scan the system for virus infections. Just double-click on the rescue system package to burn it to a CD/DVD. You can then use this CD/DVD to boot your computer. The Avira AntiVir Rescue System is updated several times a day (contains the current virus definitions VDF) so that the most recent security updates are always available.
Once you’ve booted up your computer with Avira Rescue System, you get a boot option to either boot from hard drive or AntiVir Rescue System. Press the number 2 on your keyboard to boot into AntiVir Rescue System. It will start loading linux and you get to select either deutsch or english. Next, drivers will be loaded, and when it completes, the Rescue System main menu will show.
To scan a computer, select the second option “Scan” and hit enter. You get to select whether to scan all files, only program files or only boot sectors. You can then select either to log scanning events or try to repair infected files. If Rescue System is unable to repair infected files, you have the option to rename the files. Finally, you can select additional file types to scan such as dialers, jokes, games, and security privacy risk software. The whole process simplifies the command-line arguments so you don’t need to manually type the commands.
The open command at the main menu will launch Linux console, not DOS command prompt. Unless you’re familiar with Linux commands, I wouldn’t recommend you selecting that option. If you’ve accidentally got into the linux console, press CTRL+F1 simultaneously to go back to Rescue System Main Menu.
According to the latest report rom AV-Comparatives, Avira AntiVir scored the highest points for Retrospective / ProActive test on May 2008. It has the least false positives and fast on demand scanning speed.