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108 Responses for "13 Antivirus Rescue CDs Software Compared in Search For the Best Rescue Disk"

1. billy13 December 11th, 2008 at 4:01 pm 1

   Thanks Ray!

2. tyzmoR December 11th, 2008 at 4:04 pm 2

   So.. Kaspersky is better than BitDefender?

3. sudeep December 11th, 2008 at 4:08 pm 3

   thanks raymond
   so which the best in terms of spy ware/malware/viruses?

4. Raymond December 11th, 2008 at 4:09 pm 4

   Kaspersky Rescue CD has much more options than BitDefender so I’d say it’s better. Moreover Kaspersky detect 11 out of 11 viruses while BitDefender failed to detect one of it.

5. yaman December 11th, 2008 at 4:13 pm 5

   thanks raymond really good job could you post how to update kaspersky rescue CD offline.

6. vikky December 11th, 2008 at 4:17 pm 6

   ThanQ Ray for all the details.
   BTW a question: if i have for example, KAV installed, would it be better to go for Rescue CD of another vendor, eg. AVIRA? Or it should be of the same vendor?

7. Rekhyt December 11th, 2008 at 4:20 pm 7

   Wow…!!!, what a post…, very nice article, thank you so much Raymond.

8. Sam December 11th, 2008 at 4:23 pm 8

   Thanks

9. bhasidh December 11th, 2008 at 4:35 pm 9

   Thank you raymond.Nice experiment.

10. VinC December 11th, 2008 at 4:43 pm 10

    Thanks,nice comparison

11. DY December 11th, 2008 at 4:48 pm 11

    Pls update ur blog more often

    (Not meaning to be rude, just eager to get more updates from u!!!)
    U ARE FABULOUS!!!

12. min December 11th, 2008 at 4:49 pm 12

    I think is batter if someone can create all in one bootable cd/dvd for all this rescue disk

13. woode December 11th, 2008 at 4:53 pm 13

    raymond What about G DATA BootCD ?

    http://www.gdata.de/support/downloads/tools.html

14. Raymond December 11th, 2008 at 4:53 pm 14

    I could only update once a day max. Reason is I have to deal with my full time job, my life and ensuring that I post something interesting. I test and make sure that the tip that I post works rather than posting blindly. All this takes a lot of my time.

15. marioncas December 11th, 2008 at 4:56 pm 15

    thanks Raymond

16. Sunshine December 11th, 2008 at 4:57 pm 16

    Thanks a lot.. Will make Kaspersky rescue cd..

17. woode December 11th, 2008 at 5:00 pm 17

    raymond about AVG You can make Rescue CD by the same program from AVG !

    http://download.grisoft.cz/filedir/inst/rcd/MakeCD_070627467.exe

18. Raymond December 11th, 2008 at 5:02 pm 18

    Thanks woode, I will checkout GData and AVG. Will update this post when I’ve done testing.

19. woode December 11th, 2008 at 5:03 pm 19

    oh !! I forgot .

    Good luck Raymond You always great ^_^

20. Mayur December 11th, 2008 at 5:03 pm 20

    Thanks Raymond
    u r rocking man

21. soundtwo December 11th, 2008 at 5:09 pm 21

    thank Raymond ! finally the best is always Kaspersky!!

22. Veto December 11th, 2008 at 5:44 pm 22

    Thanks raymond

23. Kislay Kishore December 11th, 2008 at 5:48 pm 23

    thnx again!!

24. Raymond December 11th, 2008 at 5:53 pm 24

    Unfortunately I can’t get to test AVG Rescue CD because it requires license file avgelc.dat to be present in order to make the ISO using AVG Rescue CD 7.5 Creator. As for G Data, I’m still downloading it.

    @min: I’ve tried to combine 2 rescue disks into one using MagicISO and EasyBoot but failed. I am not sure if it’s even possible to merge 2 linux livecds into one.

25. Riz December 11th, 2008 at 6:13 pm 25

    Thanks Ray… Another Gr8 post

26. sudeep December 11th, 2008 at 6:15 pm 26

    thanks for 4 Th comment

27. pine December 11th, 2008 at 6:16 pm 27

    thanx man, that’s awesome!
    didn’t nod 32 had a resQ disk?

    cheers

28. Anwar December 11th, 2008 at 6:18 pm 28

    thanks Ray

29. aamirullah December 11th, 2008 at 6:32 pm 29

    you did a real hard job. thanks alot

30. sharath December 11th, 2008 at 6:34 pm 30

    thanks ray

31. woode December 11th, 2008 at 6:53 pm 31

    ok Raymond … G DATA Will be Enough to test !

    By the way :

    In eset smart security 4, you can make Rescue CD

    http://up.zyzoom.org/uploads/images/zyzoom-1916b3009f.png

32. Ammar December 11th, 2008 at 8:22 pm 32

    Thanks Raymond. That must have taken you days to test.

33. mafia87 December 11th, 2008 at 8:41 pm 33

    I try to figure out for a long time on the best anti virus cd.. and u make my life easier… ur blog is the best…

34. animesh1ly4u December 11th, 2008 at 8:50 pm 34

    great article
    thank 4 your hard work 4 us

35. vinay December 11th, 2008 at 8:59 pm 35

    Thanks ray…! A good review..!
    What about ESET NOD32 ? Is it having a Rescue CD?

36. Masoud123 December 11th, 2008 at 9:12 pm 36

    Thanks Raymond

37. iter December 11th, 2008 at 9:29 pm 37

    wau , this post really interesting and useful. I will get Kaspersky Rescue CD .

38. Vibhanshu December 11th, 2008 at 9:39 pm 38

    Thanx raymond, Great and usefull work again as always could you suggest a tool to remove virus from exe files and also could you upload RRT at rapidshare or provide a link to download it because RRT v2.0 is not available and new version is paid

39. UnderDOS December 11th, 2008 at 10:10 pm 39

    Thank’s Raymond…
    I just check and compare KASPERSKY and BIT Defender…
    But you did all the thing…

    Many Many Thank’s…

    Now… I know… KASPERSKY is the best thing…

40. ankit pasi December 11th, 2008 at 10:19 pm 40

    Thanks raymond.
    i really love your test!
    it shows which rescue cd is good. However, it doesnt show which is best cuz to test that we need 1000s of samples . this is because a program might detect some and might not detect some others. so we need a larger scale to test which is ahead of which vendor..
    Also, one question, were the malware samples live or just dormant?

41. philips14c December 11th, 2008 at 10:25 pm 41

    I agree that Kaspersky is the best but I don\’t like the path that this product follows especially with the KIS suite! The last version use about 60Mb memory and it has been dumbed down! I mean no custom policy for firewall? Once I was able to catch a virus with the firewall, a virus that Kaspersky dint detect it! (A strange program with a strange name in \”windows\\system32\” folder tried to connect to Internet! LOL!)

    BTW: I still use KIS 7!

42. aircave December 11th, 2008 at 10:32 pm 42

    thanks Raymond for another helpful post.
    Any chance you could rank these? maybe your top 3?

    I would like to try to create a multiboot usb drive with at least 3 rescue cd\’s. I was thinking… kav, avira, and BART. And maybe Hiren too.

43. webcadre December 11th, 2008 at 11:12 pm 43

    which one you most recommend ray?

44. Margie December 11th, 2008 at 11:16 pm 44

    I have to say
    in my toolbox
    is ewido_micro.exe

    updates itself at startup of the program,
    currently has
    1,268,911 signatures

    Fast and efficient, removes/deletes when done.
    Exceptional program.

45. Frank December 11th, 2008 at 11:21 pm 45

    i prefer Kav thx

46. Zeke December 11th, 2008 at 11:26 pm 46

    Greaaaaaaaaaaaaat Post, Thanks a bunch for such Good info

47. raj December 11th, 2008 at 11:55 pm 47

    gud 1….

    we can say all in 1.

    thnz raymond team..

48. hani55 December 12th, 2008 at 12:29 am 48

    waaw great post raymond
    thank you
    i’l choose kaspersky

49. Vinay December 12th, 2008 at 12:44 am 49

    KASPERSKY ROCKS..!!!!
    Proved again..
    Thanks a lot ray…..

50. jenni December 12th, 2008 at 2:05 am 50

    Hi raymond…

    Thank you For your insightful articles.

    Could u point me an article which discusses the performance (strenghts/wekanesses ) of the latest Kaspersky 2009.

    would like to Purchase one. But would be glad to have a first hand account of its usage from you…

    Thankfully,
    Jennifer

51. jenni December 12th, 2008 at 2:06 am 51

    PS: I meant the Kaspersky 2009 Antivirus

52. warz December 12th, 2008 at 2:39 am 52

    hey that testing was indeed very helpful man !!!!!

    one request only if u could test all of them for the same no. of files it could be better…….

    u could also add the ease of the use of the user interface for all of them

53. edu999 December 12th, 2008 at 5:15 am 53

    Where the updated files are stored ? into a folder in the harddisk ?

54. Uplink December 12th, 2008 at 5:25 am 54

    I want a Nod32 rescue CD

55. Raymond December 12th, 2008 at 9:34 am 55

    I’ve included GDATA to the list. As for ESET 4 Rescue CD, I won’t be testing it because it requires me to download Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK) which is more than 1GB.

    @warz: They are tested on the same computer with the same amount of files. Reason it shows a different number of items is because different antivirus scans differently. Some will extract compressed archive files like zip, rar, chm and etc and some don’t.

    @webcadre: I’ve already answered that in the article. Please read before asking.

    @philips14c: You should try Kaspersky 2009 which uses way less memory.

    @ankit pasi: I agree that I should use thousands of virus samples to really test the effectiveness of virus detection but unfortunately I don’t have that much. Although it’s only 11, only 3 BootCDs manage to detect all 11.

    @edu999: The downloaded updates are stored temporarily in ramdisk. After restart, the updates will be deleted.

56. Rob December 12th, 2008 at 11:07 am 56

    What viruses did you plant?

57. holy grail December 12th, 2008 at 11:21 am 57

    ok, so the holy grail everyone is asking for is a combined dvd or usb key with all their boot/rescue disks in one. magiciso can sort of do this, but the free version is limited to 300MB, and combining linux is difficult.

    But what about a bootable usb key, I reckon it\’s doable, with a little app to switch boot files around. Maybe a few heads together can sort out a way of achieving this.

58. Raymond December 12th, 2008 at 11:47 am 58

    It’d be great if that can be done. I’ve tried to do that using MagicISO and EasyBoot but failed. Perhaps someone who is able to do that could share with us how?

59. drew December 12th, 2008 at 12:49 pm 59

    Use the GRUB boot loader on the pen drive and make multiple partitions on your pen drive to whick you install your various distros.

60. daniel December 12th, 2008 at 7:19 pm 60

    raymond, what 11 virus did you use to test?

61. Mahendran A December 12th, 2008 at 7:52 pm 61

    thanks raymond

62. Raydio December 13th, 2008 at 3:07 am 62

    I\’d still like to know how these rescue disks can use your internet connection to update the virus definition files, as was previously stated in the VBA disk article that Raymond so generously mentioned.

    When you use these disks to boot up, how do your network drivers load so that a web connection is made for purposed of updating definition files? In the case of Avira, I think you have to download the definition files in addition to the disk, or it comes with them.

63. Alessio December 13th, 2008 at 4:07 am 63

    I think that this post is great! So I’m transalating it for Italian users, too.

    Sei Italiano? Visualizza questo articolo in Italiano sul sito indicato sopra!

64. Raymond December 13th, 2008 at 8:31 am 64

    Raydio: Your network drivers are automatically detected from Linux/Windows PE. Unfortunately the updating only works if you have an internet connection that’s plug and play, meaning you plug in the network cable, and you get an ip address from the router or dhcp server which allows you to access the internet without entering password.

65. jordao December 14th, 2008 at 3:21 am 65

    hi Ray you are the greatest, i love you man, you have helped me many times and i have learned a lot from you, i am so glad for the things you have done for me. I got two questions for you Ray:
    1. Where did you learn all those tricks that you teach us.
    2. My computer is freezing up and i can’t use ti, maybe because of a spywere or a virus, i can’t even run a scan or update my antivirus softare, so is there a way of running a antivirus program form bootable disc without having to install it?

66. Myo December 14th, 2008 at 6:10 am 66

    Hi Raymond,

    My pc is very old (from 1998). Ive tried different rescue cd\\\’s last week.

    - Avira said that the pc has not enough ram.
    - Kasperky didnt start, my computer keeps starting with that (with other option also).
    - F secure worked and scanned my complete pc (with error on files) [*eset-nod did that also when running in windows!?. btw i removed eset, its kinda stupid, F-secure Internet security is much better ]. Sometimes it stopped running by scanning big or special files?? (i had to remove the files)

    Today i tried the G-data boot/rescue cd. Very nice looking window. But the same problem when scanning big files or special files (like the iso from G-data, installation files from programs).

    The update from G-data was very fast, downloaded easily 575 AVC files in 8 minutes!
    I have an internet download speed of (max) 1Mb.
    Internet detection/connection is made automatically by G-data without any delay.

67. MHMOUD December 15th, 2008 at 10:48 am 67

    thanks Raymond i’ve downloaded Kasper & Dr web

68. hhgg December 15th, 2008 at 11:18 am 68

    The kaspersky disc gives a error: Database Corrupted. It happens if you do the update. Any fix to this?

69. dogelz December 16th, 2008 at 10:42 am 69

    u r the best ray…

70. ToKico December 17th, 2008 at 12:10 am 70

    I’m going to try to combine various rescue disks in one. I, once, managed to put Damn Small Linux and Puppy Linux in one CD, so it shouldn’t be that hard. Please email me at

    acmps[dot]pt[at]gmail[dot]com

    for suggestions and for what rescue disks should I put in a CD/DVD.

71. Myo December 17th, 2008 at 7:22 am 71

    hi hhgg

    Tried with a downloading a new iso?
    http://www.kaspersky-labs.com/devbuilds/RescueDisk

    Ive tested Avira, Kaspersky, F-Secure, G-data.
    Only F-secure were able to run complete. G-data was the second that worked until it has to scan bigger files, the pc hanged (F-Secure had this problem less).

    But my pc have 256MB of ram! and the hardware is very old. XP is heavy for the cpu (Pentium 2!) . Mostly i got crashes and hang on\’s, thats why probably not all worked good.
    Kaspersky had loaded the files from the cd until somewhere the pc just started renewed, i gave up with two tries.

    Most good looking window is from the G-data software, the buttons from the menu are clickable with mouse.
    http://www.gdata.de/support/downloads/tools.html

72. michael December 18th, 2008 at 3:37 am 72

    I downloaded the kaspersky iso and burned it to a cdrom. I booted with it on two different computers. Both computers got to about 95% and then it sent the term command and shut down the cdrom. Neither computer would boot to the cdrom.

    So no matter how good you think it is its NOT. If it wont boot what good is it. I will try number two on the list. BUMMER!

    Is this a new version issue or what? Todays date is dec 17 08

73. Dgtlx.com December 18th, 2008 at 4:46 pm 73

    Wow, what a great list of rescue disks. This list would be helpful when I try to get rid of malwar eon my friends’ computers.

74. michael December 18th, 2008 at 4:49 pm 74

    OK i figured out why the disk would not boot in the above post. Nero burned it as track at once instead of disk at once. Now it works.

75. Tarun December 20th, 2008 at 10:32 pm 75

    Thank you for the comparison man, Again kaspersky rule here..

    PLS note: Raymond.cc have become my first to visit site on the net , it have overcome lifehacker, i noted it today….

    bcoz of your hardwork put into your blog …
    great post , and it helped me .
    thanks again

76. ha14 December 20th, 2008 at 11:37 pm 76

    I had panda, bitdefender and kaspersky boot cd. I tried them and apparently I didnt had any virus and hope to stay like this probably my avast antivirus has some part on this condition. It would have been better if some of those boot cd could be burned into one cd/dvd to have more choices once we boot on the pc. Could it be done and how????

77. Nagashiro December 21st, 2008 at 12:28 pm 77

    Raymond,

    It is true that running multiple antivirus will cause conflict between them?

78. akjbond007 December 27th, 2008 at 9:30 pm 78

    h!!!!!!!
    raymond avast ki bootable CD free download pe available nahi hai ………

    plzzzz upload free link ,,,,,

79. haridas thanajeyan January 1st, 2009 at 12:04 am 79

    thankyou for all software.inguled some mobile soft good

80. Eugene January 12th, 2009 at 10:05 pm 80

    Hello all!
    I have managed to join Avira, BitDefender, F-Secure, Kaspersky, Dr.Web and avast! ISOs to one big ISO with multiboot menu. It’s about 800 MB now, and I’m going to upload it to rapidshare during a week.
    Please contact me if you could donate for my upload internet traffic ($40).
    Thanks in advance.
    Eugene, icq# 81724064

81. Teo January 18th, 2009 at 6:07 pm 81

    Finally, Which is the best rescue Cd?? thanks..

82. RoJhat January 21st, 2009 at 12:03 pm 82

    Raymond very thank you

83. jun January 23rd, 2009 at 11:50 am 83

    thnks bro keep it up, thnks for helping, god bless

84. Eugene January 26th, 2009 at 9:08 pm 84

    I have updated avast! ISO bases up to 2009-01-16.
    And managed to add VBA and Panda ISOs to my multiboot disk, so now it’s 8in1.
    And I’m still looking for uploading sponsors, $4×10 or $10×4…

85. AntiVirus February 17th, 2009 at 4:41 pm 85

    Great post, hope to see more just like this one in future.

86. Brian April 15th, 2009 at 7:56 am 86

    You know, AVG sucks. Even when you install it on Windows it doesn’t detect any virus when you actually have lots of them. It doesn’t even detect W32.Brontok or W32.Gammina (such elemental viruses). Shamelessly.

87. Justin Mitchell April 21st, 2009 at 1:46 am 87

    Wow, the Kaspersky disk is terrible. It took over 25 hours to run on a modern laptop, and caught no viruses (even though there were at least 2 there). The interface is not very good either.

    I also had trouble with the bitdefender disk. It froze during boot when loading the pcmcia drivers.

    I finally downloaded ubcd4win, which includes a few antiviruses, which worked for me.

    Next up is to try the nod32 boot disk.

88. Justin Mitchell April 22nd, 2009 at 5:16 am 88

    Surprisingly, the nod32 rescuecd did not work. The laptop booted fine, but the full virus scan only took 2.5 minutes to run. Subsequent scans only took 8 seconds. For whatever reason, it’s not scanning everything. I rebooted and adjusted all of the settings, and still no luck.

    FYI, it does support auto-update. The current virus defs are about a 20MB download.

89. Jose Luiz April 22nd, 2009 at 5:31 am 89

    Justin Mitchell – Try the AVIRA – it´s very good, and you have option to make update the file, before burn CD.
    After dowloading the file update, in link bellow:
    http://dl.antivir.de/down/udf/rescue_update.zip
    - You open o original file ISO “Avira_rescuecd” in any
    software for to edit ISO files, and then found a archive
    with name “antivir”, you replace the files by updates files downloadings before. Now can to close, and don´t forget to save the new file ISO created. Then only burn CD again.
    I am using, here in Brazil, and make a CD burn update each 30 days.
    - Sorry by mistake in english !! – I´m Brazialian
    I thing have help you !!!

90. Jose Luiz April 22nd, 2009 at 5:53 am 90

    Hello, Eugene
    What software / aplication used for make multiboot DVD/
    - Boot CD Wizard?
    - Magic ISO ?
    - EasybootCD?
    - I try to make it multiboot, but the bases Linux, Windows PE, Visa PE, have differents locations files “.BIN”
    - I believe that don´t know how to make it.

91. lastcameleon April 25th, 2009 at 9:28 am 91

    I’ve just tested the ‘G-DATA RescueCD’, and it contain more than the ‘German’ language; just take a look at ‘/boot/isolinux/isolinux.cfg’ (In the ISO Image), and you’ll see that it support German (by default), English, Frensh, Deutch, Italian and Polish. You just have to enter ‘en’ in the command line on the isolinux boot screen (And by the way, thanks for the list, it helped me a lot).

92. Eugene April 27th, 2009 at 9:08 pm 92

    Hello Raymond!
    Why did u deny my previous comment about my finished multiboot iso?
    I’ve posted it some weeks ago, but it’s still hidden…

93. Eugene April 27th, 2009 at 9:21 pm 93

    Hello Jose Luiz
    I used only BCDW.

    There was a problem with different files at the same path indeed.
    It took me some days to fix this problem, so it’s no copy-paste task) See config in my iso for more details.

94. Zel May 12th, 2009 at 6:05 am 94

    Thank you very much for this experiment. I had a computer that would continue to reboot and brought it to a repari person but could not help. I’m going to try Kapersky and see how it turns out. Thanks….Again….Zel

95. Paul May 27th, 2009 at 9:05 pm 95

    Hello, i’ve purchased the Avast Bart CD for my company, it’s a super rescue CD and easy to boot on any computer, if anyone wants i can give him the generated rescue cd and it’s up to date too.

96. Martin PL May 28th, 2009 at 4:35 am 96

    http://www.arcabit.pl/content/view/125/139/lang,english/

    I have runed Arca Nix (CD) scan on my 3 PCs (including laptop) without any problem.
    Basiclly I have Kaspersky 2009 installed + bitdefender (free edition) + Spyreware terminator + Comodo Firewall on all my computers.
    Occasionally I run scans on line like Panda, MKS…
    And never got any virus/malware infection.

    Mentioned Arca Nix is very easy to use – bootable linux Cd – runs update via LAN, also each day publishing new updated CD so just to download from unvirused PC and burn.
    Recommending to all of you.
    BTW – Congratullantion for job well done
    Greetings from Poland

97. Mix June 17th, 2009 at 12:03 am 97

    Tried BitDefender but it doesn’t recognize any of 2 partitions on my HDD. Switched to KAV Rescue and it works like it should. Takes a little time to boot up but evrything else works fine. Very fast scanning. High quality program and very important.
    Thanks Ray.

98. Ed June 22nd, 2009 at 10:09 am 98

    Nice job Ray, helped me out a lot.

99. kop July 2nd, 2009 at 10:55 am 99

    good work bro!

100. sarah July 2nd, 2009 at 6:49 pm 100

     the virus has disabled my cd drive, and i cant seem to boot the file from the flash disk… how do i do this? Thanks so much

101. CL July 24th, 2009 at 9:46 pm 101

     sarah July 2nd, 2009 at 6:49 pm 100

     the virus has disabled my cd drive, and i cant seem to boot the file from the flash disk… how do i do this? Thanks so much

     Sarah,
     —- A Virus really can’t “stop” your cdrom from working on boot, it can so in windows, but your probably not burning the cd correctly. Read about “How to burn an ISO” there are free programs out there to burn ISO files. You can’t just burn the file to CD; not how it works.

     Also, Great post! Thanks!

102. melina July 31st, 2009 at 9:24 pm 102

     Hello,

     Panda SafeCD has been updated. Version 3.4.3.5 now supports both NTFS and FAT. It also supports signature updates, and the tool scans AND disinfects.

     More information and download at:
     http://research.pandasecurity.com/archive/Panda-SafeCD-3.4.3.5-Released.aspx

     Thanks!

103. jackeren August 16th, 2009 at 3:53 am 103

     G Data 2010 english version
     download in here:

     http://www.gdatasoftware.co.uk/typo3conf/ext/dam_frontend/pushfile.php?docID=4195

     free man

104. jesse August 18th, 2009 at 3:27 am 104

     Great comparison. Would be better if u scanned the same number of files though
     oh well :p

105. Walt August 26th, 2009 at 8:30 am 105

     Comon jesse – read the whole thread – you will see that Raymond has indicated that there are the same number of files on the PC only each app opens archives to different levels hence a different number of files.

106. sai September 5th, 2009 at 12:00 pm 106

     how to create a multiboot dvd using above all antivirus boot cds..can u help me by demonstrating with screenshot

107. lubog September 10th, 2009 at 2:27 pm 107

     Hello Raymon,

     Thanks for the good job.

     Just wanted to say that you can download EN version of G-DATA BootCD at the USA site. URL:
     http://www.gdata-software.com/typo3conf/ext/dam_frontend/pushfile.php?docID=4195

     For other versions change the language at the top of the site.

     Good luck!
     

108. HOTSTEPPA October 4th, 2009 at 9:25 am 108

     gdata is ranked as best .. go for it guys