Previously I’ve introduced a total of 3 free rescue CDs provided by Kaspersky, Avira and BitDefender. In my opinion, Kaspersky is very well known for its detection rate but it is not updated regularly and can’t auto update. As for Avira, it is also pretty good in detecting both known and unknown virus. Although Avira Rescue CD is updated several times a day, we can’t possibly burn the ISO into a CD each time it is updated because we’ll wasting CDs. As for BitDefender Rescue CD, it has a very sensitive detection rate and is able to automatically update the virus definition and saving it to RAM disk. Each rescue disk has its own pros and cons.
Here’s another Rescue CD recommended by leofelix. Last month, F-Secure released a new major update on their free Rescue CD. It was one and a half year ago since their last update version 2.00. If you don’t know what is a Rescue CD, it is a CD that you can boot up the computer with and can run an antivirus program even without a working or bootable Windows. Rescue CD are best used when your computer no longer starts because the operating system has been corrupted by malware and you can use Rescue CD to scan the computer and quarantine the malware. This may allow the operating system to start properly again.
F-Secure Rescue CD 3.00 will by default scan all hard drives in the computer, all USB drives attached to the computer, Windows FAT and NTFS filesystems. F-Secure Rescue CD ISO file is 155MB in size and you’ll need to burn the ISO to a CD. Boot up the computer with the CD and you’ll see a screen that looks like the image below. You have 15 seconds to press ENTER to start the CD or it will boot normally via hard drive.
Once the ENTER key is pressed, it will start uncompressing Linux and boot the kernel. Please make sure that you have access to the Internet. Either plug in your network cable or make sure you have wireless enabled. Once F-Secure Rescue CD is loaded, select Next and hit the ENTER key. It will automatically start updating virus definition database. I have a 1Mbps connection and it took less than 3 minutes to update. Click Next to agree the end user license agreement. At the next screen you get to select what to scan. To select or deselect an item on the list, use the space key and select Start Scan. While the scan is ongoing, you can hit Alt+F5 key to see details of files being scanned, Alt+F6 to see any malware found and Ctrl+C to cancel scanning.
F-Secure Rescue CD scans the computer and renames all files containing malware to .virus file extension. Using Rescue CD on a working operating system may rename essential system files and so cause your operating system to no longer start. If this happens you can use your operating system repair disk to reinstall the operating system. Note that this may reinstall a fresh operating system and so remove any personal settings and files you have. If your computer is working fine after the scan, simple do a search on all *.virus file and delete it.
Rescue CD cannot scan encrypted disks. This includes for example, Windows Vista BitLocker disk encryption.
If you do not have an internet connection, can download Rescue CD virus definition updates to a USB drive using a healthy computer. This USB drive must be empty and 256mb or greater in size. Just download fsdbupdate.run file (40MB) and save it to the root directory of the USB drive. Insert the USB flash drive to the infected computer, boot up using F-Secure Rescue CD and follow the instructions.