Update: How to make a bootable thumb drive virus scanner for NTFS
Some nice folks have recently told me about broken links in the article. Thank you! The NTFS4DOS tool I specified is still available, though it's no longer free. Datapol has been acquired by Avira, the German company who makes the free -- and very good, I might add -- antivirus program, Antivir. Here's the full orignal article with all of the links checked and fixed:
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. F-Prot is free for personal use, but requires payment if you plan to use it in a commercial setting: NTFS4DOS is only €20.52, roughly $30.00 USD; 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." (The original link to the HP utility in that article is broken click here to download the HP utility.) 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?
Cheers!
The Geek
posted by Kenny Hart at 11:27 AM
3 Comments:
Making bootable 512MB flash with HP tool - OK, making it ntfs4dos makes it 1.44MB. wtf?
You don't want to run the install program, as it creates a floppy image, as you discovered, that's only 1.44MB on the thumb drive. All you want is the NTFS4DOS.exe file and you'll have to run it manually.
Hi! Great post - but the links to the F-Prot updates are dead! Any chance of finding out where the updates may be now (if they're still available?)
Cheers!
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