Best Way To Boot & Scan After Problems

[Mick Sturbes]

Hi All,

Obviously XP (with SP2) is a lot more stable than its former life versions BUT what is the Avast recommended way to re-boot and do a scan should it all go badly wrong.
Modern PC's don't seem to have floppies to boot from, so all I have done is copied the OS CD disk to boot from just in case ( to keep the original safe  )

Personally I am familiar with dos and its commands, so could do a safe boot into the dos command and then 'ashavast' to start the scanner (or even write a batch file) .... is this OK or do you suggest another method. Make up a boot cd and put some avast files on, if so which??

Great job keep going guys!!! 

[Eddy]

It all depends on what you mean with "should it all go badly wrong"

so could do a safe boot into the dos

That is not possible. XP has no dos, it has a command prompt

Avast has a option to scan at boottime.

[Lisandro]

So could do a safe boot into the dos command and then 'ashavast' to start the scanner (or even write a batch file) .... is this OK or do you suggest another method. Make up a boot cd and put some avast files on, if so which??

It's not possible with Home version. Professional version has command line features to use with DOS.
You should use avast! for DOS (burned into a CD or, better, an USB pen drive).
avast!, like Eddy said, has a boot-time scanning for Windows XP.

[Mick Sturbes]

It all depends on what you mean with "should it all go badly wrong"

Me probably being a bit paranoid, as XP SEEMS to a bit safer and more recoverable, but by going wrong I mean FREEZE and that's it!! Won't boot up afterwards ........... or is XP even THAT clever it won't happen that way.

so could do a safe boot into the dos

That is not possible. XP has no dos, it has a command prompt

Doh Tech ...... I knew that        Swat I meant 

Avast has a option to scan at boottime.

But no good if you can't access the option when the PC freezes and won't boot up from the hard drive.

[Mick Sturbes]

Whoops, looks like I got my quote - /quotes all wrong in my last post ....... You know I really HATE computers ............. 

[Mick Sturbes]

I suppose what I am really asking is ........ a lot of 'other' virus check programs get you to make up an 'emergency disk' for use when ....... but not Avast, too good a program I guess huh?   

[Eddy]

Avast has the BART cd

[darth.mikey]

Hello everyone i was just wondering do i need to buy the BART cd  or can i just download it?

[chocholo]

avast! BART CD trial download is available only for serious potential buyers after online request, visit http://avast.com/i_kat_205.php?lang=ENG page.
Public download is not available.

[Mick Sturbes]

Avast has the BART cd

Granted .... but you can buy a new PC system for the price of it 

So you can't make a startup/emergency disk up with Avast then?

[Eddy]

Yes you can with Avast for DOS

[Mick Sturbes]

Yes you can with Avast for DOS

Aha,  So do I just burn all the downloaded, unzipped Avast for DOS files onto a CD then?

[Eddy]

yup, make the cd bootable and put also some other handy (recovery) utils on it.

[Mick Sturbes]

yup, make the cd bootable and put also some other handy (recovery) utils on it.

Eddy there is a large whisky and a beer at the end of the bar for you  Cheers mate 

[DavidR]

yup, make the cd bootable and put also some other handy (recovery) utils on it.

Eddy there is a large whisky and a beer at the end of the bar for you Cheers mate

If your XP partition is formated as NTFS (not FAT32) you will need a copy of ntfsdos (freeware, see link below) rather than bog standard dos in order to be able to read ntfs folders, etc.
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/NtfsDos.html