Make A Bootable USB Kaspersky Rescue Disk

Many antivirus companies offer free rescue disks to provide their customers with an option to disinfect a system from the "outside"; in other words, an option to boot using the rescue disk to run disinfection or scan operations without system restrictions.

That's especially helpful in scenarios where a virus has damaged the operating system critically, so that it won't boot anymore on its own. A rescue disk is also useful if malware cannot be removed from a running system, for example, when it blocks the execution of antivirus software or damaged it even.

Most antivirus rescue disks are supplied in the disk ISO format and need to be burned to CD or DVD, or copied to USB Flash Drives.

Kaspersky Rescue Disk

Kaspersky recently started to offer the Kaspersky USB Rescue Disk Maker which, as the name suggests, creates a bootable rescue disk on an USB flash drive.

Kaspersky Rescue Disk 10 is designed to scan and disinfect x86 and x64-compatible computers that have been infected. The application should be used when the infection is so severe that it is impossible to disinfect the computer using anti-virus applications or malware removal utilities (such as Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool) running under the operating system.

Two downloads are necessary to create the bootable Kaspersky USB Rescue Disk:

• The most recent ISO image of Kaspersky Rescue Disk 10 [link]
• The Kaspersky USB Rescue Disk Maker [link]

The USB device needs to use the FAT16 or FAT32 file system and not NTFS. You can format any USB Flash Drive with a right-click and the selection of format from the context menu. Note that formatting will remove any data that is on the disk at that time.

To create the bootable USB rescue disk do the following:

1. Install Kaspersky USB Rescue Disk Maker on the PC.
2. Browse to the ISO image of the Kaspersky Rescue Disk in the program interface after startup, and select one of the connected USB devices.
3. The device will be used to create the bootable rescue disk.
4. A click on Start copies the relevant files from the ISO image to the USB drive.

It is important to test the USB rescue device at least once, to make sure that it will work in emergencies.

It is usually necessary to enable booting from removable devices in the BIOS, so that the boot process picks up the USB rescue disk before the actual operating system(s) on the hard drive.

Closing Words

Kaspersky's Rescue Disk can be used to disinfect systems that have been rendered unbootable by a virus and in scenarios where it is not possible to disinfect the virus while the operating system is running.

It is naturally also possible to burn the ISO image to CD or DVD, if that is preferred.

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