Avira releases FREE AV Resuce Boot Disc

bigdogchris

bigdogchris

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Feb 19, 2008
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Pretty neat. A Linux based boot disc that includes a virus scanner to catch those nasty viruses and root kits before Windows loads!

Link

That link has information and link to the package that includes the disc iso and iso burner. Or click here for a downloads page if you want to just grab the iso.

Gonna give it a whirl right now just for shits and giggles.
 
Very cool product, from a cursory glance. Will check it out in-depth later but, Avira apparently wants that top spot from Eset pretty bad these days, and so far they're on track to actually do it. ;)
 
AMD_Gamer said:
what exactly does it scan for?
Click to expand...

"A Linux based boot disc that includes a virus scanner to catch those nasty viruses and root kits before Windows loads!"

I could be wrong, but I think viruses and/or rootkits:D
 
It's pretty nice. It worked on my desktop, but I used it today at work on an older Gateway laptop and it kept freezing up. It also didn't have a driver for the mouse buttons but the pad worked (wouldn't allow double tap on pad). I had to use a USB mouse.
 
Does it update on the fly before scanning, or do you need separate definitions/new download each time?
 
Appears to require updating on a regular basis, so... make sure you've got a CD-RW handy (I have a stack of 'em for such things). :)
 
I got no issues with grabbing the latest version whenever I need to scan something. The webpage is saved and stashed in the bookmarks of my Portable Firefox, I've got Portable ImgBurn on a USB stick also along with the UBCD4Win on the same stick sooo... as long as I can get a machine to boot off that USB stick (also have this stuff on a bootable CD as well), I can get to it and burn it. ;)
 
Nice. It's only 45 MB, so if you have to re-download it every once in a while, it wouldn't be that much of a hassle.
 
Joe Average said:
I got no issues with grabbing the latest version whenever I need to scan something. The webpage is saved and stashed in the bookmarks of my Portable Firefox, I've got Portable ImgBurn on a USB stick also along with the UBCD4Win on the same stick sooo... as long as I can get a machine to boot off that USB stick (also have this stuff on a bootable CD as well), I can get to it and burn it. ;)
Click to expand...
Once that is booted, does it show the systems drive as C: or the ramdisk as C:?

Also, can you update the virus definitions after it's booted. I don't mean actually update the "build", but temporarily update the definitions for scanning.

Also, to get that to boot from a USB drive, you use diskpart or that HP tool?

And can you add your own programs to it?
 
On mine, the system drive shows up as C:, yes (meaning the actual OS drive in my system with the UBCD4Win USB stick in place). The RAMdisk shows up as B:. I simply made a UBCD4Win setup, then used PE2USB to move that content to a USB stick (and then burned off the resulting ISO as well to a CD-RW so I have both options).

If I enable the networking during the initialization of UBCD4Win, yes, I can get virus updates - the benefit to using a USB stick for that purpose is they're kept on the stick; with the CD-RW I can't write to it, so I'd end up having to re-create the whole UBCD4Win ISO and doing the burn again with updated virus defs.

There's no need for the HP USB stick tool(s) because PE2USB transfers all the files from the UBCD4Win content (it's a BartPE component) to the USB stick and makes it bootable using all that content; it doesn't "boot" like a regular boot disk, etc.

Of course I can add anything I want to it, that's the whole point of the UBCD4Win...

And stop doing so many edits, dammit. :D
 
Joe Average said:
If I enable the networking during the initialization of UBCD4Win, yes, I can get virus updates - the benefit to using a USB stick for that purpose is they're kept on the stick; with the CD-RW I can't write to it, so I'd end up having to re-create the whole UBCD4Win ISO and doing the burn again with updated virus defs.
Click to expand...
So when you boot off the USB and update the definitions, they actually write to the thumb drive and stay? Or do you have to manually copy them to the drive?

Thanks.
 
I do a quick manual copy as required; the updates go to the RAMdisk created when the UBCD4Win starts up, so... gotta do a manual copy but it's not really a big issue if I forget 'em, I can always just reboot again to handle it.
 
Has anyone gotten this disc to work? I've tried it on a few PCs, and I get to the part where it asks about video modes. I hit Enter to choose, but skips past, to a screen that looks like a TV with the antenna pulled out (snowy distortion, etc), and that's it.
 
I would use Helix3 rather than this. It's based on Ubuntu and supports a wide range of hardware. Assuming it supports your network card, you can run ClamTK, the GUI version of ClamAV, and you can update the virus definitions from your network connection.

http://www.e-fense.com/helix/
 
Joe Average said:
On mine, the system drive shows up as C:, yes (meaning the actual OS drive in my system with the UBCD4Win USB stick in place). The RAMdisk shows up as B:. I simply made a UBCD4Win setup, then used PE2USB to move that content to a USB stick (and then burned off the resulting ISO as well to a CD-RW so I have both options).

If I enable the networking during the initialization of UBCD4Win, yes, I can get virus updates - the benefit to using a USB stick for that purpose is they're kept on the stick; with the CD-RW I can't write to it, so I'd end up having to re-create the whole UBCD4Win ISO and doing the burn again with updated virus defs.

There's no need for the HP USB stick tool(s) because PE2USB transfers all the files from the UBCD4Win content (it's a BartPE component) to the USB stick and makes it bootable using all that content; it doesn't "boot" like a regular boot disk, etc.

Of course I can add anything I want to it, that's the whole point of the UBCD4Win...

And stop doing so many edits, dammit. :D
Click to expand...

What?

I've been an IT professional for 12 years but I have to admit I don't recognize any of these acronyms. Sounds interesting though, I will do some Google searches on what you have mentioned. I have used the HP USB stick formatting utility so I'm not a complete n00b. ;-) My freenas box does boot off of a 128MB USB stick that I got free at an IT trade show...lol.
 
UBCD4Win = Ultimate Boot CD for Windows, http://www.ubcd4win.com - a "rescue CD" that uses the Windows Pre-installation Environment (known as WinPE) customized by a guy named Bart (literally) and widely known as BartPE. The bootable CD loads into a micro-Windows environment similar to what you get with Linux LiveCDs these days, but it's not Linux, it's actually Windows, just stripped down.

PE2USB = Pre-installation Environment (to) USB, http://gocoding.com/page.php?al=petousb - a tool that takes the content from the UBCD4Win (once created and residing on the hard drive) and transfers it to a USB stick and makes it bootable. Same principle as the UBCD4Win, except in a format made for use with USB sticks. Can also be used for other types of removable storage as long as they can be made bootable (SD cards, CompactFlash cards, etc).

There's no limit to what you can accomplish these days with BartPE and any tools of your choosing, it just takes time to learn how to use the multitude of tools that are currently available, and more appear each and every day.

After 12 years, you should know this stuff. :D Get back to me when you're at the 25 year point (I'm well past that now) and we'll have something to talk about over drinks... :)

And yes, it works fine for me on the several machines I have around here. I even moved the content to an SD card to use to test out my Toshiba Tablet PC that can't boot from USB... but it can from the SD slot, go figure.
 
i have tried it on two systems. one with agp ati x800 and i got no video. the other with onboard ati... crap i can't remember what it is... x300 maybe. got video with that one. seems nice.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
Yup.
Click to expand...

Did you have to set the directory to scan before it would run or did the default directory work?

I can not get it to scan accurately. It scans for about one second for me and then says it's scan has finished. Then when I tried to change it to any other directory, it wouldn't start scanning at all. Wierd... What am I missing here people?
 
Joe Average said:
Very cool product, from a cursory glance. Will check it out in-depth later but, Avira apparently wants that top spot from Eset pretty bad these days, and so far they're on track to actually do it. ;)
Click to expand...

That's what I'm thinking too. Side by side, I'd still take Eset though. Even if they had the exact same definitions and capabilities, I'd still take Eset because of the app itself.

The PE2USB is handy, but there's simply too darn many computers out there that don't support booting from a USB.
 
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