Recommended DOS scanner

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tosis
  • Start date Start date
T

Tosis

Hi there all,

In the absence of a group FAQ or similar, I ask the following. I'm an IT
contractor to a large number of firms in my town. Many of them still don't see
the light of day regarding antivirus defence (some prefer to think of them as
acts-of-god, others couldn't be bothered to outlay the cash, some just don't
listen or learn), and I still gain customers on a daily basis... all because of
the common cold, err, virus.

Now, to remove these perky apps I have a number of tools aimed at particular
virii, as well as knowledge of their methods of infection, how to detect them,
etc. What I'm missing here is a good general purpose scanner for DOS that I can
place on a CD / read-only flashdrive and run in a "secured" environment.

I've tried Norton's NAVDX, I've tried AVG's DOS system too; they both detect
virii (not all) and both remove them (once again, not all, some cannot be
repaired and certain repair jobs destroy the infected files). I need a tool
that's going to be able to remove +95% of what I run across. Otherwise it's
scrap all of that and use a modified external drive chassis to scan hard drives
directly with a laptop or similar.

I'm hoping someone out there reading has come across this issue and might have
an answer for me... TIA
 
If you succeed in finding ANY virus program that claims 95%
efficacy (as you specify the need), please .. please share it with
us as soon as possible. You are looking at the subject through
rose glasses.
=========================================
 
Tosis wrote:
[snip]
Now, to remove these perky apps I have a number of tools aimed at particular
virii, as well as knowledge of their methods of infection, how to detect them,
etc. What I'm missing here is a good general purpose scanner for DOS that I can
place on a CD / read-only flashdrive and run in a "secured" environment.

I've tried Norton's NAVDX, I've tried AVG's DOS system too; they both detect
virii (not all) and both remove them (once again, not all, some cannot be
repaired and certain repair jobs destroy the infected files). I need a tool
that's going to be able to remove +95% of what I run across. Otherwise it's
scrap all of that and use a modified external drive chassis to scan hard drives
directly with a laptop or similar.

I'm hoping someone out there reading has come across this issue and might have
an answer for me... TIA

f-prot for dos and/or fpcmd.exe (the command-line component of f-prot
for windows) should be perfectly good for *detection*, but . . .

for removal a dedicated removal tool is best... there are an infinite
number of things that a virus or worm could be written to do in
addition to replication and there is no generic way to undo them all...
in a pinch a general purpose scanner can probably disinfect just about
anything you come across but it won't clean up the secondary mess
caused by the virus/worm/whatever...
 
kurt wismer said:
Tosis wrote:
[snip]
Now, to remove these perky apps I have a number of tools aimed at particular
virii, as well as knowledge of their methods of infection, how to detect them,
etc. What I'm missing here is a good general purpose scanner for DOS that I can
place on a CD / read-only flashdrive and run in a "secured" environment.

I've tried Norton's NAVDX, I've tried AVG's DOS system too; they both detect
virii (not all) and both remove them (once again, not all, some cannot be
repaired and certain repair jobs destroy the infected files). I need a tool
that's going to be able to remove +95% of what I run across. Otherwise it's
scrap all of that and use a modified external drive chassis to scan hard drives
directly with a laptop or similar.

I'm hoping someone out there reading has come across this issue and might have
an answer for me... TIA

f-prot for dos and/or fpcmd.exe (the command-line component of f-prot
for windows) should be perfectly good for *detection*, but . . .

for removal a dedicated removal tool is best... there are an infinite
number of things that a virus or worm could be written to do in
addition to replication and there is no generic way to undo them all...
in a pinch a general purpose scanner can probably disinfect just about
anything you come across but it won't clean up the secondary mess
caused by the virus/worm/whatever...
I've been doing similar work for a number of years and built myself a tower
with a bloody great handle on the top, an extremely long IDE secondary
master cable and a power lead extension, I just pop the cables onto the
clients hard drive and scan from there using both Norton and AVG. This
method has the advantage that if file system damage is such that a format is
going to be required I can just drag all their critical files into a folder
on my own HDD. Otherwise I can drag removal tools, AV updates etc the other
way.

I know that AVG and Norton are not supposed to happily co-exist but they do
and, on occasions each have caught something that the other has missed.

B
 
File infectors are a problem to remove manually, but just about anything else,
CoolWebWhatever included, comes out/off with a lil elbow grease.
 
kurt wismer said:
Tosis wrote:
[snip]
Now, to remove these perky apps I have a number of tools aimed at particular
virii, as well as knowledge of their methods of infection, how to detect them,
etc. What I'm missing here is a good general purpose scanner for DOS that I can
place on a CD / read-only flashdrive and run in a "secured" environment.

I've tried Norton's NAVDX, I've tried AVG's DOS system too; they both detect
virii (not all) and both remove them (once again, not all, some cannot be
repaired and certain repair jobs destroy the infected files). I need a tool
that's going to be able to remove +95% of what I run across. Otherwise it's
scrap all of that and use a modified external drive chassis to scan hard drives
directly with a laptop or similar.

I'm hoping someone out there reading has come across this issue and might have
an answer for me... TIA

f-prot for dos and/or fpcmd.exe (the command-line component of f-prot
for windows) should be perfectly good for *detection*, but . . .

for removal a dedicated removal tool is best... there are an infinite
number of things that a virus or worm could be written to do in
addition to replication and there is no generic way to undo them all...
in a pinch a general purpose scanner can probably disinfect just about
anything you come across but it won't clean up the secondary mess
caused by the virus/worm/whatever...
I've been doing similar work for a number of years and built myself a tower
with a bloody great handle on the top, an extremely long IDE secondary
master cable and a power lead extension, I just pop the cables onto the
clients hard drive and scan from there using both Norton and AVG. This
method has the advantage that if file system damage is such that a format is
going to be required I can just drag all their critical files into a folder
on my own HDD. Otherwise I can drag removal tools, AV updates etc the other
way.

I know that AVG and Norton are not supposed to happily co-exist but they do
and, on occasions each have caught something that the other has missed.

B


Prevention and backup are the only strategies.

An AV scanner that runs in DOS has so many limitations (disk size,
inability to access files on an NTFS drive, inability to understand
the registry in any meaningfull way) that the vendors have
stopped developing a product.

If you need a belts-and-suspenders way to scan your system
put a cheap second disk in the box, install a minimal
copy of your OS on it and make it dual-boot.
 
If you need a belts-and-suspenders way to scan your system
put a cheap second disk in the box, install a minimal
copy of your OS on it and make it dual-boot.

Thanks for your input, valid points you've made. I think you forgot to read the
entire post tho - I'm not working on my own machines - I'm being called out to
service other people's!
 
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