The Best Antivirus Rescue Disks

25 Sep The Best Antivirus Rescue Disks

Bootable rescue disks are helpful when malware prevents you from running normal antivirus software. These disks allow you to scan your computer without running Windows and often find files that regular antivirus software might fail to detect. Some tools can scan the Master Boot Record of the hard drive. This is a feature that is especially useful in removing persistent or difficult to clean-up threats.

These bootable programs typically use a basic text interface, but most come with customization options so that you can choose to scan specific types of files or folders, only file types or sizes, and more. The most effective of these tools will feature a an graphical user interface as well as support for more advanced threats such as rootkits and ransomware.

AVG Rescue CD is a good example, with a simple-looking but well-organized GUI and a variety of scanning options. It’s also one of the few to offer a full MBR scan, which is usually impossible to do from a non-bootable program. However, it’s not the fastest on this list, and its text-only interface isn’t suitable for everyone.

Kaspersky Rescue Disk is another great option that’s fast, has user-friendly interface, and supports more advanced viruses. It has features aren’t found in other bootable antivirus click here to find out more tools that include the ability to scan boot sectors, hidden startup objects, as well as files that are not fileless and the entire hard drive. You can also set exclusions to reduce the time it takes to check for malware. In our tests, it detected all malware samples we sent it which included some that had evaded detection by other antivirus programs.