This is where a bootable antivirus program becomes the hero of the day. With one of these scanners, you create a special flash drive or CD/DVD disc from a working computer and then use it on the infected machine to scan the hard drive for viruses—all without needing to start Windows! Since the most serious of viruses cause damage to the parts of your computer that allow it to start, a bootable antivirus tool can often be a powerful weapon at your disposal for getting the virus removed and your computer back up and running. You can update the virus definitions directly from the disc, view quarantined files, and exclude files, folders, and extension types from scans. This program supports quick virus scans, full scans, and custom scans so that you can choose your own folders and drives to scan. Visit the link below to download this tool, or if it’s built-in to your version of Windows, you can find it in Settings. In Windows 11, for example, go to Settings > Privacy & security > Windows Security > Virus & threat protection > Scan options > Microsoft Defender Antivirus (offline scan). 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 it’s 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. You can install this AV program to a USB device or a disc, but either method is still a rather large download, at over 800 MB in size. Comodo Rescue Disk can be launched from a USB device or disc in either text-only mode or with a full graphical user interface (GUI). 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. This tool provides a full desktop environment, so if you’re uncomfortable with text-only user interfaces, you should be okay with how this one works. There’s a start menu, desktop items for other tools like GParted, a file browser, and of course a shortcut to ESET SysRescue. The virus scanner itself is very easy to use and can be used quickly without any customizations. From the On-demand scan page, just choose the option you want to use: Smart scan to check only some areas for malware—specifically, common locations malware is found; or choose Custom scan to run an in-depth, full scan of any area of the drive, including the whole thing. However, you can change advanced settings if you want. Some scan settings include choosing which object types to scan—such as files, symbolic links, email files, archives, self-extracting archives, boot sectors, and others. You can also enable heuristics, detect PuPs, exclude specific file extensions, and set scan limits on files of a certain size. When you first run the program, you’re given the option to not only run the virus scanner, but also check for errors on the disc or in the memory. 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. 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. 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. First, you must boot to the Panda Rescue ISO disc to prepare your computer for running Panda Cloud Cleaner. Next, your computer will reboot into Windows but launch the cleaner before any other applications start. All other processes are shut down so that this program is less likely to be terminated by a virus. One problem with this tool is that it may not work properly if a virus has infected your computer so deeply that you can’t even boot into Windows. If this is the case, you’ll want to try any of the other tools in this list that don’t require Windows to start. You can run a quick scan or a full scan, depending on what areas you’d like checked. There’s an option to check for viruses in potentially dangerous file types like executables so that you’re not scanning every single file type, which could take a long time. A utility called Zillya! MBR Recovery is available from this bootable disc, which can scan the MBR for viruses and attempt to fix boot issues caused by a corrupt MBR. We like all the settings that are included, as well as the fact that it provides a very easy to use interface. There’s also a file retrieval option that helps you copy data from your computer to another drive, such as a removable hard drive. This is a full desktop experience, so you use your mouse to navigate. There’s also a terminal window for running commands, and the Opera web browser if you need it. Norton has directions for putting this ISO file on a DVD or USB device if you need help. You can’t scan individual files, only a whole drive at once, but there are other tools that come with it that you might find useful. There are plenty of options in this program, like choosing which drives to scan, defining a set of file types to scan, choosing to scan inside archives, and deciding a default action when a malicious file is detected. You can also adjust the heuristic scan settings and update virus definitions directly from the CD or USB drive. The obvious downfall to VBA32 Rescue is that you must use it in a text-only mode, unlike most of these other tools that have a regular, graphical interface. There are hardly any options or user input except pressing the Enter key to confirm the start of a scan.
