How to make a bootable thumb drive virus scanner for NTFS
Please note: the information in this post is outdated. This post has been superceded by "How to make a bootable thumb drive virus scanner for NTFS: 2008 update." Please do not post a comment saying that this post is out of date--I just told you that! Go to the latest post.
My latest Kool Tekkie Tool (KTT, pronounced "kit") comprises a
thumb drive made bootable with :datapol:'s NTFS4DOS; the latest version
(3.16b) of FRISK
Software International's F-Prot Antivirus for DOS is run
from the command line. Both of these utilities are free for personal
use, but require payment if you plan to use them in a commercial
setting: NTFS4DOS is only $25; F-prot is $29 for a 20-user license.
NTFS4DOS is, in itself, a KTT. It allows you to make an NTFS-capable
floppy disk or thumb drive and comes with chkdsk and defrag utilities
to boot. First, make your drive bootable by following the instructions
in my LockerGnome
article, "Kool Tool to Make Your Thumb Drive
Bootable." CAUTION! This will completely erase your drive; be
sure you have your data backed up before you start. Then, download NTFS4DOS and run the
setup. From the NTFS4DOS program group, select "Create NTFS-capable
boot floppy." Select the drive letter of your thumb drive and click
Next twice. Your thumb drive is now bootable and NTFS capable.
Next, download F-prot, the latest virus signatures and the latest macro virus signatures and extract
them to a folder on your thumb drive. You're ready to go! Plug it in
and let's take it for a spin.
Make sure you set your PC's BIOS to boot from your thumb drive. On most
machines, you do this by making "USB" or "Removable Device" first in
the boot order. If all goes well, the PC will boot to a startup menu.
Choose NTFS4DOS; you'll see the drives being mounted and if you are
using the freeware version, the screen will scroll to the NTFS4DOS
title screen; you will have to answer "yes" to the question "Do you use
this version of NTFS4DOS for private usage only? (Yes/No):" You'll see
the mounted drives at the top of the screen and the C:\> prompt
at the bottom. Change to the folder where you stored F-prot and run
f-prot.exe to do a virus scan.
Pretty Kool, eh?
posted by Kenny Hart at
4:25 PM 
14 Comments:
A good extension to this would be an auto running batch file (using autorun.inf) to wget the latest definitions from fprot whenever the disk is plugged into a windows machine. That way it gets autoupdated ready for the next boot (on an infected machine). Now I just need to find my old small usb stick to try this out......
I tried to use NTFS4Dos and it won't let me change the drive letter to point to my usb drive.
Mark
ms11492@hotmail.com
Some older PCs will not allow you to boot from a USB drive. You could make a boot floppy disk that does the same thing.
I'm looking for someone who might be able to refer me to a computer game - one that I had on my computer a couple of years ago- but now cannot find hide nor hair of it. Is there a sort of "computer-game-expert" whom I could contact with a descrption of the game - and he/she would be able to tell me what it is and where I can get a copy.
There is a usb driver supplied by one of the CD manufacturers, I think Panasonic, that can be loaded in the config sys on a floppy boot disk, that will help older machines recognize a usb storage device (the first one it finds).
I have used it before, and it worked well.
Majic
I went to link url to download the Kool Tool and the link is invalid.
Is there another area to download same?
Kent
The link to ntfs4dos leads nowhere, nothing works. No download just more ads and searches with pop ups.
Geek,
I followed a link to your article about creating a USB boot disk and the company referenced is out of business, none of it's web sites would load. Just "error, not found".
The product is NTFS_4_DOS by datapol.
However, there is a light here, Avira AntiVir Personal Edition @ http://www.free-av.com/antivirus/allinonen.html has, at the bottom of the page, a product called NTFS4DOS Personal, which has a manual in .pdf format too!
Think you could check this out and let us know if it is comparable to the extinct product?
Thnaks, Geek!
pcwiz...
hehe
a mac person does not need to wast there time with this
A Linux person doesn't need this either
download.com has a link to this blog right now in the anti virus area. i looked up those sites from this blog and the links go to different pages than i expected. i wish there was an easy live cd solution. it looked like opensuse may have such solutions. but i was not sure if they could fix the xp systems. i did not want to learn because it is not my system i am trying to fix.
datapol merged with Avira and the product NTFS_4_DOS is now called NTFS4DOS and sells for 17.95 Euros
http://www.avira.com/en/products/avira_ntfs4dos_2.html
Ok HP tool formats in either NTSF or FAT32...the option to create a boot disk with the option to find the files you want only works with FAT32...
Dos version no longer supported, that is why the links don't work
http://files.f-prot.com/files/dos/f-prot.zip
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