How To Repair Virus-Infected PC When Windows Fails To Boot Up [Guide]

» By Usman on Jan 04 2012 Leave a comment

Although Antivirus suites including MS Security Essentials, Avira, Avast, Norton AntiVirus etc., help us protect the system from malwares, viruses, spywares, keyloggers and other like potentially harmful programs, sometimes malware infected applications manage to slip through deployed antivirus security cracks and attack the system booting process. In such a case, anti-virus suites can’t identify and remove the infected application/processes unless the you repair the infected system boot sectors, and then boot into Windows to perform the virus removal operation over entire disk. In this post, we will show you how to clean your system from viruses when you can not boot into Windows.

Using Ubuntu Live Disk

Earlier, we brought you guide on how to create a persistent Ubuntu Live USB and then use it to reset Windows 7 admin and standard account password, wipe hard disk data, and recover hard disk data and repair lost partitions. Since Ubuntu Live Disk doesn’t require booting the installed OS to access primary hard drive, we could use it to scan the system for virus infected applications and scripts.

First off, follow the steps mentioned here to create Ubuntu Live Disk. Once done, move to virus-infected PC and change the boot priority option from BIOS menu. All you need is to reboot the system, and press F2, F10, DEL, or other system defined key to enter into BIOS menu. Now, move to boot menu and set External USB/Hard Disk as first boot option. Now, plug-in the Ubuntu Live Disk, save the changes made to BIOS and reboot the system. It will take you to Ubuntu Live boot menu, select Run Ubuntu from this USB option and hit Enter to begin loading Ubuntu OS.

Just like Windows, Ubuntu supports a wide range of anti-virus suites including Avast, Bitdefender, F-PROT antivirus etc, but since Linux based OS are not vulnerable to malwares, virus and like attacks, many users don’t install on their Linux systems. Avast Workstation is available for free, and provides an easy way to scan not only only auxiliary storage mediums, but also the external hard drives. You can download Avast Linux Home Edition (DEB package) from here. Once downloaded, right-click the DEB package, and select Open With Ubuntu Software Center.

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