A rescue CD is an additional tool provided by most antivirus companies to assist in removing difficult-to-remove malware without booting in to Windows. This is especially useful when the computer is so badly infected that Windows couldn’t be booted up, or is crawling really slowly and you can hardly run any diagnostic tools inside Windows to investigate and clean the virus.
A huge advantage in using a rescue CD compared to the antivirus installed on your computer is the chances of a successful removal is much higher because the malware is inactive since Windows is not even loaded in the first place. Unlike when a virus is active on the system, it can be very resilient and block any security tools from being run, making it really difficult even for experienced users to delete it from the system.
Rescue CD’s mostly come as an ISO image file that can be written to a compact disc (CD) or installed to USB flash drive which is then used to boot up the computer to run the live operating system in memory. Most of the rescue CD’s provided by the antivirus companies are free while there are a few that are exclusively available only to their paid customers. Here is an extensive list of 26 available rescue CD’s that can be downloaded and used for free.
1. ArcaNix
Price: Free
Operating System: Linux
File Size: 262MB
Format: ISO
Signature Update Method: Not Available
Default action(s) for detected items: Ask for action
Last Release: Updated daily
Additional Information: Has basic and advanced modes. The basic mode asks as few questions as possible while the advanced mode gives you complete control over the configuration. Testing shows that the scan is very slow and even missed a publicly released malware sample that we copied to the system.
2. AVG Rescue CD
Price: Free
Operating System: Linux
File Size: 85.9MB
Format: ISO and EXE (install to USB)
Signature Update Method: Online (Automatic), Offline and Download (Manual).
Default action(s) for detected items: Prompt for action (Heal, Rename, Delete, Report)
Last Release: 22 November 2012
Additional Information: Uses menu based selection and not graphical desktop environment. Comes with extra utilities such as Midnight Commander, TrueCrypt, Registry Editor, TestDisk, Smartctl, PhotoRec, Ping and Links. Allows you to install to a bootable USB flash drive from the main menu.
3. Avira AntiVir Rescue System
Price: Free
Operating System: Linux
File Size: 262MB
Format: ISO and EXE (burn to CD and save to ISO)
Signature Update Method: Online
Default action(s) for detected items: Repair, rename by adding .vir extension to the file if repair is not possible.
Last Release: Updated daily
Additional Information: Press Alt+F7 to return to graphical user interface if you accidentally end up in command line shell mode. You can launch Midnight Commander, a file manager to assist in backing up files by pressing Alt+F5 only from the shell.
Download Avira AntiVir Rescue System
4. Bitdefender Rescue CD
Price: Free
Operating System: Linux
File Size: 379MB
Format: ISO
Signature Update Method: Auto online update on startup.
Default action(s) for detected items: Prompt for action (Disinfect, Rename, Delete)
Last Release: 06 July 2012
Additional Information: Can be installed to USB using UNetbootin. Comes with additional utilities such as GParted, TestDisk, Thunar File Manager, Firefox web browser and Foxit PDF reader.
Download Bitdefender Rescue CD
5. Comodo Rescue Disk
Price: Free
Operating System: Linux
File Size: 50.5MB
Format: ISO
Signature Update Method: Online and Offline
Default action(s) for detected items: Prompt for action with clean (quarantine) option selected as default.
Last Release: 25 December 2012
Additional Information: Requires downloading more than 100MB of definition files before you can start scanning. Allows you to boot into graphic or text mode. Comes with PCMan File Manager, Midori web browser and screen capturing tool.
6. Dr.Web LiveCD
Price: Free
Operating System: Linux
File Size: 234MB
Format: ISO
Signature Update Method: Online
Default action(s) for detected items: Attempt to cure, and move to quarantine when failed to cure.
Last Release: 04 February 2013
Additional Information: You can create a LiveUSB by running the shortcut found on the desktop after booting with the LiveCD or download the independent LiveUSB installer. Comes with a mail client Sylpheed, Midnight Commander file manager, ePDFViewer, Firefox, and CureRegistry to fix the registry damages caused by a virus.
7. eScan Rescue Disk
Price: Free
Operating System: Windows PE
File Size: 325MB
Format: ISO
Signature Update Method: Online
Default action(s) for detected items: Renames infected file by adding .mwt extension.
Last Release: 08 October 2012
Additional Information: Some scanning options such as startup folders, registry and spyware are disabled. Ability to launch a command prompt from the eScanAV AntiVirus Toolkit program.
8. ESET SysRescue
Price: Available only to ESET users (paid and trial)
Operating System: Windows PE
File Size: 183MB (ISO)
Format: ISO, write to CD/DVD, install to USB
Signature Update Method: Online
Default action(s) for detected items: Automatically quarantine (delete) detected files.
Last Release: Not Applicable
Additional Information: ESET SysRescue can only be created from their security software Smart Security or NOD32. It requires Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) which is 1.7GB in size installed on the computer to create the rescue disc.
Very Useful Tips to save PC.
I would like to see the same type of Article regarding To back up data in case of system is not booting( keep in mind there were no back up of system file before damage has done). Could you please provide us a list of free and paid tools to back up system files or how to get system data if PC is unable to boot.
Thank You.
Great information here. I would be must interested in your results via testing. In the comment made related to ArcaNix I would assume you did test these.
Ratings of them would be great too, but I am going to just start making discs and see what I find.
Thanks!
Good Job done,
for Avira i’ve bad experience when uses on PC with Linux installed. I think it’s not good programmed, after use i must perfomance an Filesystemcheck (fsck) on this Partitions.
Raymond! Whaddaguy! I’ve been benefitting from your tips and recommended apps for quite a few years now. Nice to see in the comments how much your hard work is appreciated. I wish you much success.
I agree with you Jim. I wish Raymond much sucsess in his life.
Hi,
Great article.
In my experience, often when using rescue cds (which may be general rather than the anti-virus niche) you end up deciding to simply finish any backup and then restore the OS, or better, an early image.
Then the File Manager issue comes to play, ideally you would have a FreeCommander type of dual-pane tool, Windows file comfy, backing to your USB backup disks, quickly with good visibility and features.
We see Midnight Commander (various), Thunar (BitDefender), PCMan (Parted Magic), Dolphin (Kaspersky), FAR (Zillya!) emelfm2 (SystemRescue CD) and probably some others.
So … I would like to know the best one or two to work with for this backup need. I find that the most important single need, since by the time you are not booting right, it is very possible that the best solution is an image restore to a fully clean system. (I did one yesterday, wrote about it on Donationcoder).
Steven
Ok this is something very nicely done. And it deserves two thumbs up. from everyone. thank you for your effort.
Thanks for the list but I don’t have room for all of these individual scanners. Hiren’s BootCD is what I rely on.
Thanks for the list. No wonder that 19 out of 26 run Linux.
As always Great job, you hard work is appreciated. A real time saver for me.
Thanks Ray ;)
A Guy
This is the update I always look forward to. Great research and a huge time saver for me!
Thanx dear Ray for this deal. Wonderful.
Thank you for the list. I wanted to know whether you have tried them all and found to work well ?
I am saying this because some antivirus softwares remove some genuine programs also resulting in losing valuable time and money. (Personal experience-Avira anti-virus !)
Regards
Investigating and keeping track of detection rate for malware and false positives requires a lot of manpower, time and resources. There are some companies such as AV-comparatives, AV-Test and VB100 that has the statistics and it is best to refer to them.
What you can do is take note of the “Default action(s) for detected items” information on this article and use the rescue disks that does not automatically delete the detected files.
Great article Raymond!
Just a little question: are they ordered ascendingly from the best to the “less better”? Is “ArnaNix” the most effective one? Or they haven’t being compared to each other?
Thank you!
Hi Lucas, yes they are in alphabetical order except the last 3 because they are a bit different. ArcaNix being number 1 on the list does not mean that it is the best or most effective one.
I like your post, the download links and update info is really helpful, these companies hide their tools where it is hard to find them, I wish there was more details on the update process and the scan results, example.
yesterday I tested 2 rescue disks.
Avira:
If you have wifi with password, it won’t connect to the internet, I had to click on updategui.exe in the folder while I was in windows in a safe PC
Scan results: 25 warnings, 7 threats
Trendmicro:
I also updated it while I was in a safe PC, you can update it while creating the USB (or CD) so I guess it will save the updates to your system and use it to create the new disk.
Results: 1 threat (not really a threat) !!!!
Comprehensive! You ain’t joking here, Raymond! What wonderful service you provide for your readers. Thanks to HAL9000 who told me last week to keep an eye out for this newly updated list of Rescue cd’s. Will be bookmarking this page for future reference. Thanks again and do keep up the great work here on this site.
Thanks again for the update!
Great info!