Is there a Live CD or flash drive mountable Linux distribution that will search Windows files for potential viruses or malware? I find that many Windows virus scanners are ineffective at removing some of the more sophisticated virus, malware, ect. I was hoping that there was a Linux distribution that keeps up to date with its virus library. I would perfer that it works with Windows xp and vista, but xp would be enough. Thank you for your help.

Is the ability to clean the infections it finds one of your requirements? BTW, I'm moving this to General, as it's a Windows security issue. I'll leave a redirect behind for a week or two, though.

Sorry about that.

I would prefer for it to clean the infections. But if that's not possible, than I would like for it to at least allow me to manually remove infections. I suppose this might be asking for too much, but it would also be nice if it had common Linux apps too. Something like a Knoppix Live CD with a virus scanner for windows. I would prefer a distribution mountable to a flash drive though. Thank you for all your help and extremely quick response.

It's all good.

The only virus scanner I'm sort of familiar with is ClamAV, but I've never heard of it being able to actually do repair jobs. I think for that you're probably going to need to find a live CD which comes with a proprietary antivirus solution. Either that, or modify an existing live CD by adding the proprietary antivirus solution of your choice (many live CDs are designed to be extremely easy to modify by users). I assume there's plenty of live CDs like this one out there with ClamAV, but finding one with a proprietary antivirus might not be as easy (for obvious reasons).

Hmm, I like the looks of the live CD link you gave me, it might be exactly what I was looking for. On its page, it claims that ClamAV is able to repair the problems. But we'll see.

Thanks for all your help, I'm always amazed by the quick response of linuxquestions users and how useful the information is. Thank you for your help.

There are several different Bootable linux CD's that can clean NTFS and FAT32 Windows Volumes.

There are a couple of ways to use them. The easiest is to use a thumb drive and run unetbootin. http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net . This application will let you run different Linux CD's off of a thumb drive. It's got DR.Web , Kaperski and F_Secure disks you can load and boot from your thumb drive. Dr.Web is ok, but takes forever, Kpaerski is the best, and F-secure won't boot on all hardware. So I suggest just running Kaperski, and make sure you update the definitions.

I also suggest looking into Trinity Rescue Kit, This is my favorite by far. It has several virus scanners built in and you can update and scan all at once as well. You can download it here
http://trinityhome.org/Home/index.ph...63&front_id=12

Once you get TRK booted up you can choose several options at the boot menu, but I usually just boot into the default. You can scan from several different engines, ClamAV, which doesn't clean, AVG which cleans, but its' slower, BDE, or Bit Defender, which works well, F-Prot which is equally good, and Finally VA which is new.

You can run a virus scan from TRK via the virusscan script. So at the prompt you would type virusscan -a avg to scan with AVG only, or you can add multiple engines and scan with several at once, this is usually what I do , so I would issue virusscan -a bde,fprot,va. The current build has some funky issues with AVG and I've not been able to get it to work.

Thanks a TON Tekhead2! This is exactly what I was looking for! I just have one question for the unetbutin... can I place the files in folders once the images are placed on the hard drive? There are alot of files and its kinda a mess and unorganized so I was hoping that I could place each distrobution in its own folder without screwing up the directories. Also, will it affect any thing if I keep other files on the hard drive, like excel files and stuff or do I have to designate this hard drive to linux distrobutions? Cuz its 320gb and it cost me over 100 bucks... Thanks again for all your help you guys!!

Hey
On some distro's you can move stuff around
but on most they will not boot when messing with them

Questions:
Which distro's
like security/recovery/rescue distro's would you like to put on usb?

how big is usb and format?

we can hook it up too
I have many, many on my usb's
multidistro!

It is a 320GB hard drive formated in FAT32, I plan on plan on installing NT password and Registry edit, Ophcrack, Ubuntu, and various other distros. I was hoping that I could simply move all the files in each distro to its own folder so ubuntu has its own folder, ophcrack has its own folder, ect. Because all the files from the different distros are all in the main older mixed with each other. Thanks again.

No chance to hide ubuntu in a folder
most full running distro's cant/ or wont' do that

stuff like ntpasswd, dban, floppy images, etc can go anywhere

some distro's mark certain folders and some will only search a folder, maybe two deep looking
most won't go into any folder, just llok for their own

I have found many ways to get around this, but too hard to explain here.

If you will submit of list of everything you want on there
I'll check it out(and clean it up), as much as possible.?

Sorry its taken me so long to reply.

These are the distros that I will be using.

Trinity-rescue-kit 3.3
Ubuntu
ophcrack
Ophline-reg-pass

and I might want to add more as time passes

Thanks a ton

alright
I'll hook it up

where to get these? is ophline NTPassword breaker?
and which orphcrack?
xp or vista?
should i google for them or you have links?

which ubuntu?
light fast type ubuntu
heavy big ubuntu

clamav livecd ubuntu?

did you already put trinity on usb?

offline Nt password
http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/

ophcrack is the xp version

and I suppose the heavy version of ubuntu? I have the room, but since i will be working with slow computers I'm not sure if the light would be better. I need a GUI right now though, not to familiar with the terminal yet. Thanks

Oh
light ubutnu I mean like ulite
or wattos

a less "heavy" wm like fluxbox, xfce etc

I recommend like WattOS, or I'll go check my list...

do you want a ubutnu with like "penetration" and web security stuff too?

alright
I got ntpass and now downloading orphcrack xp

I would like the penetration and web security, and what ever ubuntu you think is the best. Also feel free to add linux distros you think are good. I might like them.