Bootup disk virus scan

Still, if there's a flaw in the antivirus, or it wasn't updated in time, it might miss one of the newest viruses.

One such virus is all it takes, and if it gets to your system, it might even shut the antivirus off completely. If that happens, you'll be completely exposed and unprotected. Anything that can infect a system is probably going to try, and even get help from the viruses that have already infected you.

The only thing you can do in a situation like that is to create a rescue disc, and even that can be done only after your computer has already been infected. To do that, you'll need to find and use a different computer, since the infected one won't be much help at this point. Generally speaking, creating a rescue disc isn't that complicated. As we said, the software itself can be found at your antivirus provider, and it comes in the form of an ISO file. It's important to note here that ISO needs to be written as a ' disk image' , and not as a 'data file'.

Once you're finished with burning the file, put it into the computer drive, and you'll now be able to boot from it. The entire process is relatively short and easy, and we'll explain it. As we have already mentioned, almost every big antivirus company has its own bootable rescue tools. Choosing the best ones has proved to be a pretty challenging job, but we have still managed to pick several that are among the best ones.

Other than that, it's up to you to choose which one you'll use. HitmanPro is a very popular one. It serves as both anti-malware, and it's often used as a second opinion. Its HitmanPro. Kickstart is a software that you'll use for cleaning your PC up.

It's skilled when it comes to bypassing barricades and protections that ransomware has set up, and it'll easily get to your desktop and boot the system. For creating a rescue disc, you'll first need a HitmanPro license, or alternatively, you can get it from its website. This is one of the smallest bootable rescue disks, and its size is only 10 MB. Still, it's doing its job properly, and it should be able to help.

Kaspersky Rescue Disk is a pretty old software by today's standards, and it was first released back in It also has an option to update the antivirus, so that your scans won't be outdated. It's pretty simple when it comes to using it, and it scans boot sectors and even hidden startup options.

Despite its age, it's still pretty decent and widely used, so we think that you won't make a mistake if you chose to give it a chance. Bitdefender will boot your device and provide you with a pretty clean and safe Linux-based environment. Web LiveDisk Rescue environment is based on a Linux distro, hence has many features built into it. The main component is called Dr.

Web Cureit! The Dr. Web Registry Editor tool can be used to fix Windows Registry related issues that may be causing trouble for your computer. The File Manager lets you perform all the file management related operations such as opening, viewing files, copying, moving files, etc. The Firefox Web Browser is also included for a quick internet help while inside the rescue environment. Avira Rescue System is based on the Linux distribution called Ubuntu.

You get many other features along with the main virus removal option. It also lets you set size limits to skip large files. Other options include heuristic scanning and checking archives. This tool updates automatically when connected to the internet.

However, these factors do mean the file size is one of the smaller on this list at around MB, so you can be up and running quite quickly. There are two scan types: Recommended Scan and Advanced Scan.

The main difference between the two is that an Advanced Scan will remove infected files, whereas the Recommend Scan allows you to either rename infected files or display a list of malicious items that were detected. You can manually remove malicious items using the Bash Shell option; you just need to know the location of the offending items.

Trend Micro Rescue Disk is one of the simplest tools available. This makes it a very practical solution as the download size is very compact at just 70MB. Although simplicity is good for less tech-savvy users, some may miss the advanced customization options provided by others on this list.

And while Trend Micro Rescue Disk is simple, it only comes with a plain-text interface which can be a little intimidating.

That said, Trend Micro has an excellent reputation in the antivirus world, consistently ranking highly with testing sites such as AV-Comparatives and AV-Test. As such, you can be confident this tool will be efficient and reliable. Avast Rescue Disk can only be created from within another Avast product. Already have Avast installed? Then this is probably the best choice for you. This tool is simple to use and offers several customization options. Options include selecting certain discs or folders for scanning or conducting a full scan.

You can also opt to automatically fix any malicious files or review them manually. Web Live Disk is a customizable tool that lets you outline scan specifics such as directory and file size exclusions and upper limits for the length of time spent scanning a file. It lets you decide what happens when you find malware, including specifics like how to deal with infected files and adware. Aside from helping you remove malware, it allows you to copy selected files to removable media for recovery or protection.

An attractive feature of this tool is the paid add-ons available. It works with Linux systems as well as Windows. The file size is one of the larger on this list at around MB. Avira Rescue System is very simple to install on a CD or USB stick and comes with additional tools, including a web browser, a disk partitioning tool, and a registry editor.

Although information about the tool on the Avira website includes claims that it updates daily, some users have complained of issues with updating. It does come as a fairly large file of around MB in size. The Linux-based tools will work with both Windows and Linux systems. It works on a GUI with no text-only option. The major pro of the Norton Bootable Recovery Tool is the high standard you can expect from this company. Anvi Rescue Disk is a really simple bootable virus scanner.

There are only three main scan buttons, two sections to the program, and no custom settings. You can run a quick smart scan, a full system scan, or a custom scan to search for malware inside one or more specific folders. There's also a section for finding and correcting corrupt registry issues that may have been altered by a virus.

The only thing we don't like about Anvi Rescue Disk is that you must scan the whole drive at once—you can't choose to scan single, specific files like you can with regular antivirus software. Doesn't have a graphical interface like most programs, so it might be hard to use if you're not used to that type of UI. It can check for potentially unwanted programs, scan cookies, find hidden file extensions, and even scan inside archives.

Before you start a scan, you have the option to just check a folder of your choice, just the boot sector , only the registry, or any locally attached hard drive. Unfortunately, because AVG Rescue CD doesn't provide a graphical interface, navigating the menus can become difficult. AVG no longer updates or maintains this program, so the virus definitions will forever be outdated.

You can still scan normally, but it won't catch brand new threats. In addition to the regular, installable Comodo Antivirus software , Comodo also has a free bootable antivirus program.

The GUI version has a familiar program interface which is much easier to use. There are three different scan types: smart scan , full scan , or custom scan. Smart scan checks for viruses and rootkits in the memory, boot sectors, autorun entries, and other areas like the registry and system folder. A custom scan lets you choose individual files and folders to scan instead of an entire drive. You can also scan archives, enable heuristics scanning, and skip files over a specified size.

It's a plus that Comodo Rescue Disk includes a familiar Desktop-like interface because it makes it easier to use than some of these other text-based scanning tools. Web LiveDisk is a feature-filled free bootable virus scanner for Windows and Linux. There are plenty of configurable settings, like choosing the actions Dr. Web should take when finding infected, suspicious, or incurable files. Also, you can set what should occur in the event it detects specific issues like adware, dialers, jokes, hacktools, and riskware.

The program lets you exclude directories from being scanned, set how large a file can be before it's excluded from a scan, and define a maximum duration Dr. Web is allowed to spend scanning a single file. We like that Dr. Web can check for virus definition updates directly from the program. This means you can reuse the software in the future and all you have to do is update it before you do a scan.

Kaspersky has what's called a Rescue Disk , which can scan for viruses, worms, Trojans, malicious tools, adware, dialers, and other malicious items. You can pick between using the graphical mode recommended or the text-only mode.

Your scan options include Fileless objects, Startup objects, and System drive. You can also scan boot sectors and specific folders. Kaspersky's tool can also browse through the file system to copy or delete files. The Firefox browser is also built in, among many other tools. The only downfall is that the file is rather large, and may, therefore, take some time to download. Panda Rescue ISO is a program that allows the free Panda Cloud Cleaner program to scan a computer without any other running processes that could potentially shut it down and prevent a virus scan.